A Bit of Adventure in the Rain

We've been having quite a lot of rain here in Dallas the last few days -- glorious! We really need it. Despite not having gutters on my house yet, I was able to strategically place my two rain barrels to catch rain run off from the roof. One on my front porch, and one along my driveway. I had low expections for water collection -- I thought I'd collect maybe 4-6 inches in each barrel. HA! Boy was I ever wrong! In just one day, both barrels were over flowing! I now have 100 GALLONS of rain water stored for watering my plants. I'm giddy. (My postman may not be quite as giddy... he has to do a bit of fancy footwork to navigate around the rain barrel to get to my mail box -- and thanks to Ask.com I now know that 50 gallons of water weighs 417 pounds. No wonder I couldn't move the barrels when they filled up!)

What I am not so giddy about, however, is what happened to my 80+ year old pecan tree in my front yard. It's huge -- and laden with pecans (do you say "peh-CON" or "PEE can"? I often say "PEE can" just to make people twitch...) and apparently the combined weight of pecans and rain was too much for two particular branches. I don't know when exactly on Sunday that it came crashing down (or was it a slow arch and collapse?) but it was definitely a precarious situation in my front yard. The first branch came down when Tom gave it a good yank; the second one required a bit of manuevering.

Ladders, chain saws, ropes and friends ensued, and the end result is a heap of brush at my curb, and a half-full firewood rack. (I love my orange wheelbarrow!)When it cures by this time next year, I will have great firewood to use! I have lost a bit of shade, but I also now have gained a much larger sunny area in my yard for my upcoming butterfly garden -- but I have lost a really great branch that I had intended to hang Halloween decor from! Alas, I will need to develop a Plan B for that. And I probably need to call a professional tree trimmer to see if I need any further preventative maintenance... Hey! Another trade to call! (See previous post about trades that I haven't yet needed...)