There's Something Putrid in the Garden

Drainage is a big deal in North Texas, for two reasons.  Firstly, there's a lot of clay in the soil.  Water tends to sit on top of clay and is very slowly absorbed.  Secondly, when it rains here, it pours.  Have you ever noticed what happens to a dry sponge when a lot of water is dumped on it?  At first, the water just runs right off.  The sponge doesn't start to swell immediately.  Put these two qualities together and if the lowest spot in your landscape is up against your house or key elements of your garden, then your foundation or your landscaping may be in trouble.

After watching a few trees really suffer due to poor drainage in our backyard, my husband and I got out there in today's driving rain to do something about it.  First, my husband cleared a trench from a major pop-up bubbler toward the street, then he cleared some backed-up (and quite rotten) leaves, etc., from the pipe to allow more water to flow away from the garden.  After that project, we began to inspect other bubblers around the perimeter of the house.  One, I noticed, was full of water but the water was only trickling out.  A possible sign of blockage.



So my husband fed the garden hose into the gutter to send more water through the downspout - we had to confirm or refute the existence of a problem.

Still only a slight trickle.  I poked at it a bit with a stick through the grate to see if I could dislodge anything.  That's when the putrid smell reached my nose.  Good grief, that was the worst smell I'd ever encountered.

I poked a bit more and something I can only describe as pink-furry-jelly junk started to flow out with the backed-up water.  "Um, honey, I think we've got a body in here."  My husband poked a bit at it, then dry-heaved as a bubble of the putrid aroma reached his nose. I was very proud of him that he held it together.  "That's got to come out," he said.   Which left me thinking, "now's a good time to do some paperwork inside!"

Off I went to fetch the screwdriver to unfasten the grate.  My husband unscrewed that screw and used his pick-axe to remove the grate.  Lo and behold, a swollen, dead country rat.  Cue more dry heaving.  Just what you want to find in your drain, right?  And, by extension, on your roof, because that's where it had to be to get into that downspout.  Gah!  It's not that I've never seen a rat here before - last summer we found one floating in our swimming pool (after which we gave the pool a shock treatment).  But he was pretty fresh.  This one had been in there a while.

Now, for those of you who've lived in NYC, you've likely seen rats.  I know I did.  Some in Central Park are quite large, the size of small cats.  This was not quite that size, but country rats here have a distinctive appearance.  VERY long front teeth and nails.  Like you might imagine a rat might look like if it grew up on a nuclear dump site.  Like a grizzly bear rat.  Crazy gross.  Husband used he pick-axe to remove it and placed it in the body bag grocery bag (that had been in the recycling bin).  No, smart aleck, it won't go in our composter.

Spoiler-alert: the following photo is really disgusting, so I'll give you some page space to click away if you wish.

"We must disinfect our tools," I said.  And I was not kidding. 

Well, water is flowing nicely throughout our yard after a few more chores like digging out a drainage box (are those gardening shoes honey?)...

... and digging a ditch lowering the grass level leading downhill from another bubbler.

We plan to soon plant a few more shade trees around the kids' jungle gym and will have more drainage work to do, but we've got things covered for now.

Lots of fun on a rainy day chez EcoMeg.  And now I will go and wash my hands for the tenth time, even though I never touched the rat or any of the tools used to remove the rat.  Blech!