It's true what they say about eavestrophes

When I lived in the city, I lived in an older area of town. The houses are mostly semi-detached, and even the detached homes are a mere 8' apart (at most). The front and backyards are often micro yards, and most of the backyards even further reduced by garages or parking pads. Extending a downspout more than 2' in any direction is often very tricky. I guess I didn't ever connect our damp (but not flooded) basement with our eavestrophe drainage - I just chaulked it up to age.
Here in our house atop clay soil, however, it is impossible NOT to make those connections. Even with our downspouts drained up to 4' away from the house, we still had a wet basement during the melting months. I've really learned the physics of water travel, though, during the last week while our front eavestrophe has, unfortunately, been off the house.
To explain how this happened: the front eavestrophe has always leaked, and so our cold cellar has always been wet. My guy took the eavestrophe down to replace it, and in trying to remount a new one discovered that the wood holding the soffits / flashing was rotted. Before he could repair / replace the whole run of wood, the weather turned on us and it's been raining non stop for a week. Consequently, the water runs off the roof onto the garden and then seeps down alongside the foundation... finding every miniscule flaw in the concrete and forcing it's way through, ending up in a puddle in the basement.
In our basement, we can see evidence in the foundation of the shifts in the cinder blocks due to the years of freeze / thaw cycles. While a structural engineer told us that such shifting is normal (especially in this area), those shifts have clearly opened up cracks in the mortar, providing an easy route for water to find its way inside. The leaking wasn't noticeable last summer, despite the never-ending rain. So the fact that we've had water in the basement this year goes to show how much more water is running alongside the foundation, now that the eavestrophe is missing.
The "Do It Yourself" books tell you to run your downspout away from the house as far as possible. Before this week, I have been a lot more cavallier about that distance. Now that I have the 'before' and 'after' evidence, I'm planning on aiming for 8'. I hope that will tide us over until we can deal with waterproofing the basement (about a $10k investment).
It's been another hard, but helpful, lesson in homeownership.

April (through June) Showers

The past week or so has seemed like an echo of last summer, where rain and dampness were constant companions. It's been raining on and off for more than a week - a day here and there of sunshine, but mostly cool wet days have finished off our spring.
The garden hasn't suffered too badly, yet - the sunny days were warm enough to dry things out before another wet patch, so apart from one rotted bean seedling and one tomato vine with a small patch of powdery mildew, we've been faring OK.
The rain barrels are full to overflowing (600 gal each... if that gives you an idea of how much rain has fallen) which I hadn't expected so I didn't plan for an overflow system. Thankfully they are away from the house, though, so if they overflow it will just mean soggy walking around the raised beds.
The compost pile has soaked up enough rain that it has dropped down by 6" or so. I haven't seen any worms migrating out of the pile, so hopefully the middle isn't waterlogged. I've been trying to add some bulky things (unshredded toilet paper rolls, for example) to give the worms a bit of a safe haven when the rains are particularly heavy.
Another rain blessing is the success of my 'donated' perennials. Most everything that I transplanted has survived, and in some cases thrived - the hostas are glorious and many of the irises bloomed. Even the wild rose that I thought wouldn't make it has shown new growth (I cut the stems down to the ground almost, when I thought it was on its last legs). The raspberry canes (another gift) are trying to decide whether to live or not... but the ongoing rain has helped keep them on the fence at least.
While our soggy weather has had its good and bad points, I have to feel sorry for the farmers out west that are suffering through a drought. The survival of those families depends on the rain and it seems that the past few years have provided too much or too little. Some people will talk about the give and take of Mother Nature, but it certainly appears that the the cycles are shortening - it's only been 7 years since the last drought out west. It must be hard for them to see their neighbours to the east embarking on another year of (too much?) rain.
Here in what's turning out to be 'the rain belt', I've been thinking that the sump pump is one of the greatest inventions of our time.

Ellie & John

I finally had my more-like-a-sister cousin and her 2 kids out to see 'the new house' (a year after it was new to us). Chalk it up to busy work and life schedules... skating lessons, skiing lessons, girl guides/boyscouts and gymnastics or ballet on her end, work and snow plowing and gardening on my end. So, Sunday (me hung over and tired for a million reasons) she brought the kids and the dog out for a visit.
It was more of a joy than I could have anticipated, to show them around and to see the kids REVEL in the 'countryness' of our life ... helping to water the container plants and the newly-planted perennials, chasing each other with watering cans (filled from the rain barrels), taste-testing the herbs. Offered TV, they elected to only watch 20 minutes of "Prank Patrol" and then came up to help me harvest (and clean) the radishes ("too hot!"), some salad and miscellaneous leaves. I divided the 'bounty' in two, and they took their half home to share with their dad.
Then the dog... running with abandon, smelling the smells of the neighbour sheep and horses, the smells of the recently-visiting dogs, the uncity smells of country life (the rabbits that eat my raspberries, the moles that make holes in the garden, the feral cats that roam the county), uncatchable and so dog-like.
It reminded me (and my sister-cousin, no doubt) of what it was like to visit our grandparents as children - pulling peas and beans and raspberries from their kitchen garden, helping to turn the compost pile, internalizing the smell of the 'workshop' (the dirt-floor basement under the summer kitchen).
Watching the kids amuse themselves made me so happy -- to have her kids associate our house with 'the farm', the place of growing edibles and new mysteries, of wildlife and wild living. To know that my other nephew eagerly awaits "Strawverry day" (when they make the 2 hour trip to our neck of the woods to handpick strawberries at Murphy's), to anticipate how his sister (only 6 months old on our last berry picking day) will react to picking then eating fresh strawberries.
I think that, for all that this place means to us, it is a blessing to provide memories to the children in our lives... memories that will stay with them and that they may be able to recreate with their children.

The blessing of rain

I feel pretty lucky that I was able to install HUGE rainbarrels near the garden. By the end of a 2-week dry spell, during which time all of my transplanting took place, I had almost come to the end of the water reserve I had. It has rained enough in the last week that they are topped up again (not to mention my new beds are thoroughly soaked) and so if the 'drier than normal' spring that is predicted does materialize, I have hope that we'll be able to make it through to the next rain.
Last week I added 2 more collection barrels - a 45-gal drum that I added a spigot to at the bottom and then extended a down spout to, and a 45-gal GARBAGE bin that I just placed under a down spout (with mosquito screen covering the open top since it had no lid) that I'll just have to dip my watering can into. I managed to finish them before the rains came, and I've been happy to watch them fill up, too.
My whole relationship to water has changed since moving here. Without access to un-softened water (I doubt the plants would enjoy salty water), rain water is literally the life blood of the garden. And so I'm 'one of those' who waits for rain (despite the fact that we still have leaks in the roof), who is grateful for pop-up showers. The compost bin needs the rain, my new 'donated' plants (freshly transplanted) need the rain, the greedy rain barrels need the rain. The peas seem to grow before your eyes after a rain shower.
And rain becomes 'free laundry'... I hang the and blankets outside and let them get a soaking during a rainstorm, and then dry them on the deck railing. The dirty mats get left outside for a few storms, after a good shaking / beating.
Finally, a good rainstorm is preceded by a over-seeding of white clover on our property, so that eventually the grass will be replaced by the sweet-smelling, white flowered green that requires no mowing.
Despite a small leak in the roof and a few leaks in the foundation, I now find myself eagerly awaiting the rain, and all the good it means.