A rock wall; an escape

Sometimes I’m working in the kitchen and I’ve thought about a programming, business, search engine problem too long and I just need to blow off a little steam.  Recently I’ve had the perfect outlet — digging in the dirt.  I, like many men, have loved digging in the dirt since I was young.  So this is perfect.

What is the goal of my digging?  Our house is built into the side of a hillside that is probably a 25 – 30 degree angle.  The runoff up against the foundation causes the basement to get wet.  I barely care since it isn’t finished and there is this cool french drain setup that I call the spillway .  However, the less water that goes into the basement the longer the washer and dryer, my tools, etc will last.   So The digging is to create a downhill drainage path (drainage swale) to carry the water down the hill but away from the house.  I have no reason to believe my project will end in success.  I do know that it feels really good to take a break by digging.

Here are the stages:

At this point I have been doing a little digging already. I dug a trench in the general shape of the swale. One trick I was pondering was how to keep some top soil for the flat area that will eventually have grass.

Since I’ve got most of the depth near the house that I need I’m planning to drag the soil that will form the swale to this newly flattened area. Then this flat spot will have topsoil and eventually grass.

It is not easy to see but I have drug a lot of the topsoil onto the flat area.

What’s next? I still need to deepen the side furthest from the house to ensure the water drains away from the house. Then I’ll create a dry stream bed. First a ditch that will be the swale and then some stones/brick/random cinder block rubble to line the stream bed. Stay tuned.