Just said to my wife that maybe the Monsoon season is coming to an end. As it turned out; I was wrong....

[JoeyJoystick]

Hi Everyone,

I stayed a little quiet after my introduction. I wanted to do some work in the garden and make some more pictures, but we had too many rainy days here in Thailand. Nothing serious though, just too wet. A little damage here and there, but again, nothing too serious.

This last weekend I actually said to my wife that maybe the rainy season is ending a little earlier this year because I notice the wind coming from the north instead of the south. And this is typically an good indicator that the end of the monsoon season is near.

Up in the North-East where my wife comes from, they had some serious flooding, but the water was receding and so my wife and the kids all went on a holiday to the farm for 2 weeks.

I stayed home. Hoping to do some serious work while everyone was gone. But this morning I woke up to the following scene....

As a reminder, the first picture shows what it looked like until yesterday.

The remaining pictures is what I found this morning when I woke up. The last 2 pictures were taken 3-4 hours or so later with much of the water receding. I can not see where this sand has come from yet, I am assuming from the farm behind my house, but there is still too much water there to really see what has happened.



Today is a very sad day.

I always say that with every thing bad, there is always something good. You may have to look hard, but there always is. So let me think out loud here for a sec.

- There were about 10 guppies left I couldn't catch. I think it is safe to assume that that have taken the high road.
- The doctor told me to exercise. I HATE exercising. But I do like working. So I have something to do again.
- I still had to put up the electric box for the pumps. I now know I have to put it quite a bit higher than I had planned....

Other than that, I'm struggling right now to find something good.

Joey

 

[addy1]

There were about 10 guppies left I couldn't catch. I think it is safe to assume that that have taken the high road.
- The doctor told me to exercise. I HATE exercising. But I do like working. So I have something to do again.
- I still had to put up the electric box for the pumps. I now know I have to put it quite a bit higher than I had planned....

Other than that, I'm struggling right now to find something good.

Darn

Something good.............your house did not flood or get washed away.....................Look at Florida from hurricane Ian, so many houses just gone.

You like working, I would suggest maybe thinking of building your pond a bit above land, ie how ever deep that water was go higher.
No electric box to short out since you had not put it in.

This is recoverable, so now you can tell the doc you are exercising.

 

[JoeyJoystick]

Hi Addy,

Thanks for your kind words. And very true what you say about the people in Florida.

This afternoon I was already thinking about the next steps... Let me sit on that a little bit first. lol.

But first we need to tackle the issue at hand. It stopped raining 120 hours ago and I still have water coming from under the wall of the next door farm. As long as tehre is water there I can not see what is wrong and can not make a plan to fix it. And than we can start thinking about the garden again. With a bit of luck it will look like a garden again in a few weeks and then it will be kinda pretty by the end of the year.

joey

 

[JRS]

Sorry to hear. Any chance of installing a drainage system by the farm wall to divert water in the future?

 

[JoeyJoystick]

Hi JRS,

I bought my house 11 years ago. There is a wall separating my house from the farm. I suspect this wall has very shallow foundations, but I need to confirm this when the water is gone.

A friend of mine also told me that the owner of the farm is responsible for making sure that the water from his land can not cause me any trouble. But hey, we're in Thailand, so I may mention it to him, but there is no use to go to the police or take him to court. Absolutely pointless.

I did make a drainage system in my garden though and after 10 years it is still working ok. When the water has resided I will see if I can make something to stop the water from coming under the wall. If the rain stays away, I think I will know more in a couple of days. But right now I am alone and I cannot see there. I do not want to take the risk to fall down in some hole.

joey

 

[SarahT]

So sorry to see your flood problem, and part of the good is that you have supportive people here. You are smart not to take a risk of falling in a water filled hole; wait until it's safe to go exploring. I've found that making a trench, sometimes with a berm, to direct water away is more effective than trying to keep water out.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that the monsoon season ends quietly for you.

 

[JoeyJoystick]

Hi Sarah,

I was just sad because I had put a lot of time and effort in it and I really enjoyed spending time in the garden watching everything grow and live.

The bottom line is exactly like Addy said earlier. There are plenty of people with real problems.

I like your approach of guiding the water away. I mostly do that. And we have these rains every year, this year just a little more than normal and something gave way somewhere.

Ideas are brewing already. Make the pond higher, deeper and maybe even extend it such that it kinda flows through the rest of the garden. That'll keep me busy for a while.

And I need a corner where I can put larger plants. I had just cut my elephant leaves because they got too big. A special variant with white spot in its leaves. I knew I had to cut it but I was waiting for a few young sprouts (that's what you call their babies right?) It's leaves were almost 1 meter long! And oh so beautiful!

 

[cas]

Oh my gosh. It is hard to believe it is the same place. So sorry. So sad to see.
I look forward to your new design. It looked great before. Now you are going to make it awesome!

 

[rubyduby]

Well I agree with all of the comments and suggestions. I am sure you will be able to figure out how to avoid this in the future...SarahT's suggestion is a good one if you have somewhere that the water can go. Of course it all depends on the lay of your land...Love the picture of the elephant ear (and you?) What a specimen! (both
I see a lot of sand so I am assuming the soil is sandy everywhere which is another thing to be happy about It should drain fairly quickly because of that. Good luck joeyjoystick and keep us posted!

 

[Tula]

Joey,

I'm so sorry to see the damage from the heavy rains.

I agree with what the others have said, build your pond with raised walls, direct water away , install electric high and create a safe " pocket" type cove for your beautiful plants.

Your garden was so charming and it will be again

 

[YShahar]

Oy! I'm so sorry you've had to go through this. It's such a sad loss!

I guess there's a silver lining, in that you now know what type of issues to be aware of, and what needs to be done to prevent a recurrence. I hope you'll be able to get it all back up and running soon, and make it even more beautiful than it was!

 

[addy1]

.Love the picture of the elephant ear (and you?) What a specimen! (both

LOL Agree!

 

[JoeyJoystick]

Thank you for the ideas everybody! It means a lot.

I will start to have a good look at all the ponds in treh showcases again. Sure I will get some more ideas from that as well. It's always good to learn from other people.

Today the water had subsided enough. There is a fairly large hole near the back wall with the farm. All the water and sand came from under there. Next to it the sand has piled up more than 30cm high. Anyways, I have 2 sacks of cement that got a little wet with the rain as well. So I am gonna mix this up with a lot of sand and gravel and fill that hole. Well, that's the simple version anyways, but you're getting my drift. The remaining sand I will use to make the garden higher. And digging a new deeper pond will provide me with more sand and soil to make the garden higher.

I know how high the water in the farm can get now, so if I make my garden higher than that with sufficient drainage, than I will be safe forever...

And it gives me a chance to fix a few other things that I would never fix if this had not happened. A drainage pipe behind my fish pond running through the garden is broken. Still working, but glad I can fix that too.

Joey

 

[addy1]

Great you have a plan!

 

[JoeyJoystick]

LOL Agree!

Yeah, I look like a hippie I guess. lol. But believe it or not, I am actually not religious about my hair. I just not cut my hair very often... This was 2 years. lol. I used to cut it more often when I was working. Actually did not have hair. Just shaved it. Bu tthan Covid came, so what's the point of cutting it off when I can not go to work. And then I got sick, so not sure I will ever work again. But that gives me plenty of time to build fish ponds.


Joey