The Rains! They Come!

Posted on January 4, 2004    Posted by John Scalzi

It’s been unseasonably warm here in Ohio for the last few days — although since it’s supposed to get down to 6 degrees on Tuesday, that won’t last — and as a result the precipitation that would normally pile up knee high around our lawn is instead merely flooding the road in front of our house (not to mention our neighbor’s fields directly south of us). I’m good with this — rain is not as pretty as snow, but then again with rain I don’t have to worry about my vehicles slipping and sliding dangerously across the 500 sloping feet of my driveway.

And trust me, this storm would have meant an insane amount of snow — we know that since it dumped more rain than we’ve seen in a while. Harris Creek, normally a placid little stream, is just a few inches below bridge level on Route 721, the main route into our little town. We’re not in much danger of being flooded out or anything so drastic — we’re on a hill, so if water were to ever reach our doorstep, most of Western Ohio would already be underwater — but it’s more than enough water to be glad that it’s draining away rather than hanging around.

The only fly in the ointment would be if the weather turned freezing cold before all the water drained — then we’d have ice on the roads and ice patches on the lawn. Which might be fun if we had ice skates and/or never needed to leave the house. Alas, we don’t, and we do.

Update: Happiness is many things, but water seeping into the basement through a crack at the base of a wall is not one of them. The silver lining is that the crack is not in the foundation of the house and that the seepage is easily dealt with (temporarily, at least) by a towel. However, sealing up the basement wall is now the number one home improvement project on the agenda. Supersaturated soil doesn’t happen all that often, but I don’t want to have to deal with this each time it does.