Hello Umbrella Owners,
The last few weeks have deposited more rain here than the last few years. We’re happy and we’re mostly not complainers. So thank you, sincerely, for your concern and your prayers for water, and if you could switch over now to flood control intercession and washed away bridges invocations, we would be obliged. The property is fine. We’re dealing with the ineluctable nature of running water in places, but we’re high and dry for the most part, and not nearly as muddy as you might imagine, owing to mazzera stone walk ways, well maintained murram paths, and Gilbert’s water diversion/persuasion campaign. Others are not so advantageously situated and are struggling.
I imagine you can guess that our dam is full. And our roof-harvesting 72,000 liter drinking water tanks are full and then some. The ground is more saturated than at any time in recent memory, and our trees and plants will drink deeply for months to come. We say, “Thank You.”
Here’s a look at the dam. Our Honor Roll-ee.
A couple of weeks ago, this is what it looked like here.
We were high (about 5000 feet) and dry.
Then it started to rain. And with the water, the silt comes to the dam.
We have gabion boxes, 1meter x 1meter x 2 meter wire boxes filled with hardcore designed to stop the dirt in siltation pools before it gets inside the dam.
But when the water comes hard and fast a good deal of it gets in anyway. I'm having a cup of tea on a large deposit of it here. Keep an eye on the gabion boxes across the dam under the tree.
Our covered kitchen is usually fine in the rain, but here it is blowing through almost horizontally. The hardest rain I have seen here.
We had to move the stainless steel prep table into the servery/storeroom so Jacqueline could continue making chapatis.
These are the same gabion boxes from the previous picture when the water level was a lot lower.
Here they are when the dam is full. You can just see a little of the pipe at the water level on the left of the photo. It marks the freeboard, the exact same level at which the dam is full. The water in the foreground is flowing over the spillway.
This is the view of the same scene from the other side of the dam. Just behind the pipe.
This is what I saw, for my very first time, just after the big rain that drenched the kitchen -- water rushing into the dam.
The dam has filled several times since we built it, but usually at night or while I was away.
I have waited a very long time to see this in person, so if there are too many dam photos here for you, too much water talk, indulge we who have spent a good deal of the last six years here struggling with ways to locate it, to corral it, to store it, in a place that is, to understate the case, uncooperative.
An action shot! The main ingress, looking upsource.
The same spot looking into the dam.
This is where we will river surf, when the break is on again.
Yin and yang. The inflow nearest, the spillway away.
The secondary ingress in the middle, and the spillway to the left. The dam is so full that some of this water flows straight out the spillway without ever really coming all the way into the dam.
The spillway in full spill. The overflow is headed to our fence line
and into a gully and the larger catchment area, and ultimately to the Stony Athi, a large seasonal river.
Thanks for your waterlogged patience. I'll sign off on a "random things that I like" note. This is one morning's work for a pair of sunbirds on Gilbert's porch. Just bigger than hummingbirds, they come in a tropical fish assortment of iridescences.
I bought these three wine bottles a few years back, with Masaai beading at the necks. I boil tap water for drinking, and I store it in these beauties. Pat, you may remember these form Alex's camp in the Mara.
Our kids' drinking cups, lined up for them when they get off the school bus.
Our (third) new cat, Dora, after the bilingual firecracker star of an animated educational series. Dorah the Explorah, in phonetic Kenyan. The first two, Tuffy and Joy, used up their combined eighteen in a hurry. But we have high hopes for Ms Dora.
I have dripping wet clothes on the clothesline. They may be there a while. Thankfully I have others.
David
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Peggy says
May 8, 2012 at 9:31 pmDid your clothes ever get dry? Are the kids going stir crazy like they do here when cooped up? Or do they get out there in it? Oh, and has it stopped raining yet?
Not much of a “comment” — just lots of questions. Appreciated the slice of life in the raining season.
Peg
david says
May 9, 2012 at 12:29 amHi Peggy,
Some of the clothes are dry. All will be soon. The kids don’t really have to stay cooped up. When it rains here, it rains for an hour or so and then stops. Very often part of the day is sunny, and even hot. If it rains long, it’s usually at night. So, yea, they can’t play on the ground like they usually do, but it’s not 40 days and 40 nights either. Now they are back at school, so the routine is pretty set for those days. You’ll see all this up close very soon, Peggy.
Love,
David
Jenny Marquez says
May 9, 2012 at 2:58 pmI remember a story of a gentleman living in the desert. Probably Arizona. He placed a small string fence around an area about 4′ x 4′ and began to water it. Seeds which had laid dormant for a very long time began to sprout. The array of plant life in that small area was amazingly vibrant and healthy. Small miracles in the ground waiting to be nutured. I imagine you will be seeing some similar resurgance of life. Hopefully, it will stay for a while so you and the children can enjoy it. I also imagine for some of your children this will be their first experience with life bursting up from the earth. Exciting stuff from the master gardener. Take more pictures..God Bless.
Jenny Marquez says
May 9, 2012 at 3:00 pmA footnote. I occurs to me how you and the other caring people at Red Rhino are watering the seedlings entrusted to you. They too have sprung forth and are most beautiful. Happy gardening!
david says
May 10, 2012 at 8:01 amHi Jenny,
Everything seems to be growing here now…a lot. The trees, the cactus, the plants, the grass, the kids. It’s green and lush. I’ll post some photos on the Red Rhino Facebook page.
Back to the cabbage patch.
David
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