h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's such a nice morning that I opened my balcony door to enjoy the cool fresh air. About 30 minutes later I heard a log chipper start up, and apart from the disturbance of my breakfast peace I didn't give it much thought because it sounded like it was in the apartment complex next door. But when I opened my front window to encourage a breeze to blow the apartemnt the noise of the machine was even louder.

That can't be right, I thought, not if it's in the other complex. So I went out onto the balcony to see if I could figure out where it is.

It turns out that contractors are cutting down trees in that copse I like to look at when I'm sitting on my sofa I can only assume this is something to do with the flooding problems we've had since the building site next door started emptying their storm drain onto the back of our complex.

It's hard to tell at the moment how many trees they're felling - whether they're clearing just enough to make a new storm drain channel or going at it wholesale - but my outlook is likely to be very different by the time they're done. I hope they don't take down any more than is necessary. Apart from anything else, that's where the fireflies hang out in the spring

UPDATE

They did indeed cut down some of the trees, in order to deepen and widen the natural channel the runoff between the outlet of our storm drain and the entrance to the main drain that takes it away had made for itself over the years - a distance of about 20-30 yards, winding through the trees... well, winding a bit, but mostly straightish. The trees were cut down partly to make the channel bigger and partly so they could get a digger in to do said widening, which is now complete (it got stuck in the ditch at least once that I know of during the process ).

They've also banked up some earth in what I can only describe as a sort of levee (a word Firefox doesn't recognise, apparently), to divert the water coming out of the building site's main drain away from us and into the now-widened channel. All sounds like a good idea. Except...

Earlier this week they laid some turf on the banks of the channel, and it looked quite pleasant and almost bucolic But...

a) although they'd banked up this levee to direct the site's runoff they didn't actually cut a gap into the channel's bank for it to run off into - they just left it to find its own way, which it now has done because it's been raining today, which leads us on to...

b) It's been raining today. This rain has been in the forecast all week long. It was forecast to be quite substantial and to last from Friday until Monday, possibly into Tuesday. Some of it might turn to sleet because it's bloody cold too.

Consequently, it's already washed away about 20% of the turf that was laid on the banks of the channel, particularly where the the site's runoff water has found its way into the channel. You'd think they'd have realised that the turf wouldn't have enough time to root itself into the earth in three days, right?

There is one good thing about all this though - I now have a quaint little waterfall to look at while I'm sitting at my computer Leastways, when it's raining. It could turn into Niagara Falls when we get some really heavy rain

Photos please!

I'll see what I can do. I have a really crappy camera on my little flip phone and it's not much good for anything more than about 20 feet away. Maybe I'll invite a friend with smartphone over next time it rains

Gah, treat yourself to a better phone.

I'd rather buy a camera

We haven't had any more rain since then, although there is some in the forecast, starting on Thursday evening with a 20% chance, 40% on Friday during the day and then back to 20% on Friday evening. And guess what...

They started working on the turf today

Maybe I'm being uncharitable - at the moment they're just clearing up the turf that slid down into the gulley. But if they start relaying more fresh turf with the possibility of rain 48 hours away, I think there'll definitely be good cause to and

If it does rain heavily enough for the waterfall to make an appearance again I'll go down there with my phone and see if I can get some decent images of it

They're putting some sand down where the waterfall was. I don't know why they're bothering - it's all going to be washed away. I mean, if you have a ditch that channels the rainwater draining off one property to a storm drain, and then you introduce a second property's rainwater to the equation and have it emptying onto the land near the ditch but you don't cut a channel for the new water to find its way into the ditch and thence to the main storm drain, it's going to find the path of least resistance, right? And that's where the waterfall happens.

Seems obvious to me

And... they've re-turfed it

Maybe they think the sand will help drainage, but you need something larger, like gravel or stones for that?

Well, it did rain yesterday but nothing more than a heavy drizzle amounting to 0.15" all day, so no waterfall

I don't think drainage was their intention with the sand - they've blocked off the channel made by the runoff and re-turfed it so it's back the way it was when they first completed the job. Next time there's another heavy rainfall it'll simply break through again in the same place. And they've re-turfed all the parts where the turf sods slipped down (turf here comes in pieces about 2 feet square rather than in rolls) with the the turf sods that had slipped down, all of which look pretty dead to me. But grass is resilient stuff. Maybe they know something I don't, being professionals and all

I think the main reason for using sand is just for landscaping. It's easier to level and smooth than dirt and the common grasses we use in Texas grow well on a layer of sand.

That's me thinking you live in rainy England...

It's back And I was fortunate enough to glance out of the window just as the advancing water reached the lip of the ditch and tumbled over, pushing the relaid turf down into the water already in the ditch as it cascaded down

I might go down and take a picture of it, although it's subsided a good deal since the rain stopped and I don't see any more rain on the radar, but I don't know if I'll be able to upload them. My phone stopped communicating to the internet earlier this week - I sent an image to my email account, but when I tried to send another one a few minutes later it failed, and the same thing happened yesterday. It's not a smartphone so that's not a big deal but it means I have no way of getting the images off it

Hmm... Does it have a removable MicroSD card? Maybe you could transfer them to the card.

I don't think so, it's a very basic phone. I've had a look at the specs online and it looks like there's a cable you can buy to plug it into a USB port http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-accessories/APCBS10UBEBSTD but at $20 that's almost more than I paid for the phone itself

Well, the thing's listed on one online store for something like $3, but naturally that sale ended yesterday and now it's back to $18

So why is it still on the bloody website? If it's a trick to make me interested in your store and bring me back to it in the future, it hasn't worked - it's just made me pissed off

EBay usually has them for $1-2