Three years ago, when we bought our cabin, there was a sort-of ditch that ran under our driveway and through our front yard. I say "sort-of" because it was lined by a mishmash of rocks and broken concrete blocks. There were giant holes carved out by rushing water, and it was only about 20 feet long.
Since there was a giant metal culvert that ran under our driveway that appeared to drain water and debris into the ditch, I decided that we needed to create a functional AND beautiful ditch.
First I lined the outside walls of the ditch, and then I started to place hundreds of rocks on the floor of the ditch. I didn't want the huge rush of monsoon downpours to dig out holes in my newly constructed ditch.
This endeavor took me two summers of carting numerous large and small rocks from all over our yard to the ditch. I soon ran out of rocks that I could dig out of our yard. So on all of our hikes, bike rides, and camping trips, I started hauling rocks from the top of Hardscrabble Mesa and the Rim...perfectly legal by the way.
On the day that my Danny saw me with a large rocks on each of my shoulders, he called the “Safety Rule,” and said I was to lift no more large rocks. Of course since my ditch was not complete, this meant that to keep me happy, he now had to haul all the gargantuan rocks that I found. Danny says next time he'll be more careful about calling the "Safety Rule."
Thank you, my love for doing all the heavy lifting so I could complete my ditch.
Isn’t it beautiful!
My ditch project was completed a year and a half ago. Since then, pine needles, pine cones, and dead branches have fallen into in my ditch—but we had seen absolutely no water has drained out of the culvert into by beautiful ditch.
In fact, my ditch has become one our (not so private) jokes. “Vicky’s Ditch with no water.”
Meanwhile for the past three years, we have had nothing but trouble keeping our swamp cooler running….it has not kept our cabin any cooler than a good fan, and the water lines have constantly plugged up. We’ve had two different so-called experts work on it to the tune of at least $1,000.
A few weeks ago on two separate days, we went out and fooled with it for several hours. We, meaning Dan (with me as his go-fer….giving him a constant stream of ideas and suggestions, which he very good naturedly listened to….I think), cleared out the water lines and seemed to get the water flowing. Hopefully, “we” had fixed our swamp cooler.
Then yesterday when we got home from our camping trip, tired and dirty, we realized that the air pumping into our cabin from the swamp cooler was two degrees warmer than the outside temperature.
Poor Danny. Out he headed into the 92-degree sunny weather to see if he could fiddle with the swamp cooler enough to get it to rattle away and start cooling us off. By us, I mean me, since Danny was raised in Oklahoma and almost never thinks it’s warm enough.
As for me, I was raised in the rainy Pacific Northwest, and I react drastically to the heat. And I believe I let my Danny know a bit too often how hot I am. My excuse is that I once had heat exhaustion when we were cycling at night in Mesa in 95 degree weather—almost fainting, heart rate 160 bpm, and my oxygen down 60. So I really do have a problem with the heat.
Wasn’t he a good husband to go out to fix the swamp cooler, and to leave me inside the much cooler cabin, where I watched him through the window to see if he needed anything. Me being his “in the cabin go-fer” this time.
He found that the swamp cooler pump was dying a slow death. Storm clouds were gathering.
But since it was late Saturday afternoon, he headed to the local Pine Hardware store where they actually had the exact pump that our swamp cooler needed.
Then the rain started….then hail….then my phone beeped three times! This is the emergency announcement that I read on my phone:
Of course, I panicked. I waited and waited for him on the front porch, as I watched the dirt road turn to a muddy muck. At last my love came safely home to me.
By this time it had cooled down and I was no longer hot. But he had the swamp cooler totally torn apart, so he headed out in the middle of a thunderstorm to install the pump and put the swamp cooler back together. He asked me to stay inside and bring him anything he might need.
I watched carefully, just in case the lightning came close to my sweetheart. I would the call the “safety rule” on him, and make him get inside with me—and to heck with the swamp cooler!
My Danny, who fixes things, got our swamp cooler pumping out an abundance of cool air….for the first time since we bought our cabin!
I now officially call our swamp cooler, “My Danny’s Swamp Cooler.”
Look at my ditch during the monsoon rainfall yesterday!
It is no longer “Vicky’s Ditch with no water,” but it looks like I may need to widen my ditch. Get ready, my love, to start hauling more rocks for me!
No comments:
Post a Comment