Rain is crashing on the rooftop as I write this (last night).
I have to admit that one of the things I enjoy about New Home is the fact that we are far more likely to get rain throughout the year. Old Home had a very definitive rainy season: End of October to the beginning of March or even possibly April. After that, pretty much dry until the end of October again.
Here things are different. Rain can come throughout the year - good heavens, one year since our arrival it actually rained sufficiently during the summer that we did not have to water at all (on the other hand, for two summers it did not rain at all and left nothing but beastly heat instead). Most of the rain is not of the sustained variety (day long storms of gentle rains) but mostly hard spots which can be interspersed with calm sections.
(Rain getting even heavier now)
We have gotten up to 5 inches in a single rainstorm. Five inches! Growing up, that was probably 1/6th of the total rainfall that fell during the entire year.
There are downsides, of course. Erosion can be a serious problem if things are not sodded up. And the rain in the summer only leads to humidity of the rather gross, nasty variety. And the rain is not regular every year - some years it is heavy, some years we are in significant drouth.
I could use a better rain caching system - and by better system, I mean "a system at all". I have played around with some test versions (plastic garbage cans) but the amount is not such that I could make a longer term go of it without an actual collection vessel (and honestly, this is another reason I am working on reducing water needs in general around the yard - the less I pay to water ornamentals that could die on me and serve no purpose, the more I save).
And all of this, of course, points out the requirement of living somewhere that getting to water is not an incredibly difficult process. I do not know that I would ever relocate again to somewhere that did not have sufficient rain to supply some level of needs.
All of that said, listening to the rain at night is peaceful. And certainly makes for a pleasant white noise to go to sleep by.
Living in Anchorage, I miss the heavy (sometimes torrential rains of the Midwest. It wasn't unusual to get a couple of inches per hour, causing instant flooding, flash floods, mobile homes washing away, etc. Here, we mostly get drizzle, when it rains at all.
ReplyDeleteThat surprises me somewhat Reverend Paul, although I do not really know why. I guess I always assume Alaska got more rain due to it being more North where there is more water?
DeleteTB - i love the sound of rain at night, too....it's so soothing, especially if you can't sleep.
ReplyDeleteas for your water situation, do you have gutters and downspouts installed on your roof? if you set up a gutter and downspout and put a rainbarrel under the downspout, you can catch and save water as it rains and then use the water from the rainbarrel to water your plants. as we are on a well that has never gone dry, we have hoses set up all around the yard to water our gardens and greenhouse. but we do collect rainwater and run it through our berkey system for delicious drinking water.
sending love! your friend,
kymber
So we are part of the way there: For some reason in our neck of the woods, there is a custom to put gutters and downspouts on the front and back of a house but not on the sides. Do not ask me why. That said, I would probably want to hang the sides as well. I would also need to get a cistern placement area that could support it (not really one currently in existence that would take the weight, I fear).
DeleteThe other thing, of course, is how long we will be here versus somewhere else...
Much Love, TB