Bluster(y) fall(ible)

No sooner than I hit "Publish" on that last little piece, a blast of rain and wind, the likes of which I haven't seen in a good while, came through and the wife called downstairs, "How do you think the gutters are?" She meant, "Have you checked the gutters this fall? Are there leaves?"

You see, if the gutters don't take the water down under the house, through the smaller pipes and into the six-inch pipe that empties in the ditch/creek out back, the water spills out into the basement window wells. They, in turn, fill to a point where the water starts to come into the house around the bottom of the window frames. I know this because it happened the first year we lived here.

Since then, we have been fairly vigilant regarding the accumulation of leaves. But since the leaves are still on the trees, my answer was more of an assurance than an accounting of my recent actions or inaction.

So, you know what comes next, right?

Better I get wet in the rain than spend my evening with a wet vac.

Remember two years ago when I spent a day and night standing guard over pumps to keep our basement from flooding after a big snow was followed by a big rain? Well, I remember it and thought to check the drain in the laundry room. Good thing, too.

But spotting a problem and assessing the problem are two different things. There was plenty of water around the drain but the water was draining. Still, the water level wasn't going down. That was when I saw there was quite a bit of water making its way under the door from the outside. There's a sloped brick area outside with a grate drain right before the doorway. It gets clogged as well.

Or rather, it gets covered in leaves and such. It didn't help that we had compost sprayed into the flower beds last week and the clean-up in that recess was less than stellar. And I knew it.

While I did the gutters, the wife cleaned the grate. I mopped the floor and all was well.

Except the lights kept flickering until just an hour ago. Or, perhaps I should say it's been an hour or so since they last flickered.