Water and Rocks

A new gadget joined the crew in my mechanical room a few days ago — a water softener.  The water up here is definitely hard.  When the PI County health department tested my well for potability, they scored the water almost 65 for hardness (I guess 0 is very soft, while 100 will dent your stainless steel sink).  I could have called the Culligan Man, but instead decided to purchase a GE softener at Home Depot, with Weinkauf Plumbing doing the installation.  This has eliminated not only the white hard water film on all my dishes and glasses, but also the rust which was turning every sink and toilet rosy red.  Alas, during installation we noticed something I overlooked at construction: there's no electrical outlet on the south wall of the basement — the softener is on an extension cord for now.  In due course, an electrician will have to correct this oversight.

The water softener (left) is a welcome addition to my
mechanical lineup.

Yesterday I finished the rock project at the rear of the house.  I've struggled to find an appropriate name for this construction, and last night, out of nowhere, the term drip strip popped into view.  So, drip strip it is!  I can't even guess how many hundreds of pounds of limestone I've moved to this roughly 2-foot wide strip under the second floor roof.  But it definitely works!  In addition to breaking up roof runoff, it will provide a visual background for the perennial bed I plan to plant next to it.

Drip strip at the back of the house, including
some very large rocks.

Some of these rocks are really large.  I can feel the impact of lugging them around the yard.  Partly for that reason, I decided to use cedar chips for the drip strips in front of the house.  Chips accomplish the same goal, but are much lighter.  In a few days I'll plant shrubs in front of the drip strip, and use more chips to mulch the new plant materials.

Maybe I should call this a "chip drip strip."

My other rock project this week is the egress window well.  The floor of the well has to be covered with rocks so keep dirt from splashing up onto the window.  Dave suggested purchasing bagged rock from Home Depot, because this stuff goes on sale in the fall.  But bought rock would be coals to Newcastle.  I am the King Midas of rocks!  In the egress well, I haven't bothered to gather nice, white limestone.  Rocks stained brown by the dirt work very nicely in this locale.  However, all this stone has to be carried down into the well in a bucket.  Dropping them in is too risky; one bad bounce and I'll have a broken window.  So yesterday I made 8 trips down into the hole lugging buckets of rocks.  Great exercise!  And I slept very well last night!

Rocks start to fill the floor of my egress well.

After several hours of labor, I took a dip in Lake Esau to clean up.  The air temperature yesterday afternoon was a delightful 79, but the lake water is definitely getting colder.  Bracing!  By the end of the month I suspect that the lake water will cease to be a reward for hard work, but rather a punishment! •••