The Fry Ranch

On Feb. 5, it looked like the Tasmanian Devil had whirled around the new house, given the freshly dug three-to five-foot deep trenches. But within eight hours, Steve had all the drainage pipes installed, and our backhoe operator, Rocky, had backfilled all the pits.

Roof water that isn’t being collected in the local tanks outside the dining room and master bedroom is now being piped down to the pecan grove. Eventually we’ll add more storage tanks there so that the water isn’t wasted. But for now, all water is being directed away from the house – a big milestone for us!

Enjoy our pipe-laying and digging photos – plus the watering hole we asked Rocky to dig for the wild animals.

If any of you folks outside of Arizona have been watching the news, you’ve seen that we were bombarded with rain in January. Fortunately for us, we got our gutters, scupper boxes and downspouts installed just before the deluge. We didn’t have time to get our ditches dug for drainage pipe before the rain hit, but we were able to make a temporary drainage system, which Steve refers to as “The Alaskan Pipeline.”

We also didn’t have time to hook up our water harvesting tanks or paint some of the downspouts so that they blend in with the stucco color. Steve did, however, temporarily install our rain chains – in the rain. They’re these neat, decorative metal cups that funnel the rain into collection tanks. In one instance, we’ll have a rain chain go to the ground and empty into some river rock (because that overhang is so small, we wouldn’t collect much water anyway).

The goal is to use harvested roof rainwater from the four tanks around the house – to water plants, clean porches, etc. Any overflow from those tanks will be piped down to larger tanks in the ‘pecan grove,’ which we will use to water our pecan trees. Okay … so we don’t have the larger tanks yet, nor have we planted the pecan trees. Oh – and we haven’t hooked up the underground pipes that connect all the tanks together either. But that’s the future plan!

Enjoy our photos that display all the gadgets that will keep rain away from the house. Next step: trenching and painting some downspouts. And probably some cultured stone to go around our porch posts. And if you missed our spiral staircase install, check it out.

P.S. – During gutter installation, we were standing outside taking photos when we witnessed a U.S. Customs air chase (per one of the sheriffs Steve works with). Apparently the newest thing is to drop drugs low to the ground from planes coming out of Mexico. See our video of two Cessna Citations in hot pursuit – following so closely that they can’t be detected by the first plane’s pilot!