Teleidoscope

Mon, Apr 16, 2007

Plumber and the Landscape

Posted at 10:41 pm MDT to Technology

One nice thing about working from home (now that I am home again) is being able to deal with various home maintenance workers without being stressed out by delays or just the need to be here.

Today I had my plumber (James Johnson of Nautilus Plumbing) in for the first time in several years. The bathroom toilet started leaking around the base just before I left for California. This was the soonest I could do anything about it: I wasn't going to try to get a plumber out on Easter (and the leak seemed to happen when during flushing, so it didn't leak while I was gone). I'm not sure what was wrong, but it's not leaking now and the handle feels different when it's flushed.

While he was here I had him tighten a handle on a sink faucet that had gotten wobbly: I try to do little stuff like that myself, but there was a decorative cap over the screw that needed to be tightened and I couldn't figure out how to get it off without mangling the faucet.

At least now the inside plumbing is taken care. I still haven't heard what the new septic system is going to do to my yard, or my bank account.

The bit about the yard is mainly curiosity. My soil and well water are both horrible. 1300 parts per million sodium bicarbonate in the water: it makes fair oven cleaner straight out of the tap. And the soil is horrible clay which is going to make the new septic system expensive. Since my lot is adjacent to county open space I generally just let the wild plants do their thing, and anything I plant needs to live on available water as much as possible: I call it Darwinian xeriscaping.

There were a few trees on the lot when I bought the place, but mostly what I have are native grasses and wildflowers. Mean wildflowers. I have little wild roses with stickers and pink flowers that make rosehips, and little prickly pear cactus with spines and yellow flowers, and other flowers that are blue or red or yellow. I'll put up some pictures when things start blooming.

But mostly what I have are yucca plants. Lots and lots of yucca plants. I call them MIL-SPEC dandelions. They are tough and fibrous so they sneer at weed-wackers. (The Indians braided sandals out of yucca leaves. I should look for a weedwacker with flint or obsidian blades.) And they have huge taproots, so if you do manage to behead them they can regrow from the root pretty much forever. And they are sneaky, with stiff leaves that taper to very fine points that stab you in the legs when you think you are safely away from them

The one plant I have that isn't native is a lilac bush (I love lilacs, maybe this year I will be here to see it blooming). It hasn't grown much in the years since I planted it, but it has survived droughts and blizzards with little or no attention after the first year. Its only advantages are being partly sheltered by the house and one of the trees, and being planted near the end of one of my gutter downspouts so it gets extra rainwater. I keep meaning to plant some more lilacs near some other downspouts, but I haven't been here at the right time of year.

If the septic work doesn't wipe out my spare cash, I may see about adding some more plants. I like some of the plants they use in landscaping down near Santa Fe, like rabbit brush. They should be as tough as lilacs with a little get getting established.

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