Buried Treasure

photos: the big hole; the rainwater cistern on the truck; lowering it into place for burial.
Along with all the grading, the small army of backhoes and dozers at our house this week did some serious digging. Remember the home burial rumoured to take place on our property (right about where our house sits) some years back? Well - I think JD and Stacy have done their best to find some bones. No luck so far.

But we did have a dandy hole in the ground. And it looked suspiciously grave-like, if you were burying Shaq perhaps. It had to be 8 feet deep and just as wide. Custom-dug for our rainwater cistern.

Moving from perennially drought-stricken SoCal to the previously, though briefly, drought-stricken WNC - collecting rainwater seemed like a no-brainer. That was before we learned of the effect of what I have come to call Magic Mountain. That's the little mountain behind our house where the clouds gather and hide, then spring over the hill and immediately drop all their rain on your unsuspecting head. You might get about 10 seconds warning. The rain starts in the treetops. Surely that isn't rain? you think, just the breeze in the trees? Then you get drenched. You can almost hear the mountain laughing. It never gets tired of this trick.

We have a big cistern in that big hole. 1250 gallons. Sounds impressive right? But the guys were busy digging drainage ditches to take excess water (after we fill that 1250 gallon cistern) away from the house. One to the back will water the woods and one toward the front will carry the water down to the pasture. And I'm busy reading about how to build that creek we wanted.

On the more serious side, our cistern should supply all the water we need for the lawn and garden. We'll collect the rain off the roof and a pump will drive it to the 2 hydrants. That's pretty cool - but we'll have to see whether this green choice ever pays for itself.

Perhaps a swimming pool after all?