Scout vs. Hanna

Tropical storm Hanna is here. Scout ran out before she checked the weather report. Despite the brave fight, I'd say she lost the battle. Of course, upon seeing this I can only think: "Look what the cat dragged in - her sorry wet self!"

I've spent the day trying to chase down the sources of the various leaks into the house. So far, I've changed out of wet clothes twice - first, after having dug out the drain tile (to aid in keeping the basement from flooding), which is supposed to daylight to the alley, but since Contractor #2 had the exit point slightly lower than the alley and our lot is still a big pile of dirt, the opening has been 90% covered in mud. I dug out a new trench for the runoff to actually get out to the alley. The basement is leaking nonetheless, but not as badly as usual. Guess the new gutter system is working, even if the drain tile system isn't!

The second time out was to clean the gutter from the old part of the house of sticks and leaves, which was causing the gutter to overflow and send a stream of water down the wall of the house, which has major gaps in the masonry as it turns out, and thus a stream of water was trickling down my kitchen wall - right into the lightswitch.

Ahh, home ownership!