The rain in drains flows mainly to the plains

Or at least now it does.

Recently as I posted wide shots for Heather at Xericstyle's monthly meme, I shared the shot below, where you can just see a rock strip on the far right that represents the terminal portion of a French Drain The Hub recently installed.  

To follow, a closer look.  It may look simple, but this was a complicated and extended project. Because it was the product of The Hub's way of working, this French Drain installation took quite the long while.  More on that in a moment.

Scenes like the following were commonplace for weeks.

Me:  "Honey, I've been calling and calling, dinner's ready.  What are you doing out here?".

Hub:  "Thinking"

Me:  "About what, dinner's ready!?"

As I would follow him back into the house The Hub would launch into a several minute long description of the varying advantages and disadvantages of different drain tube configurations, rock versus rock and gravel combinations, and how important it was going to be to incorporate...at which point I'd stop actively listening. 

The Hub was In Process.  He was going to mull over and plan and then execute this job in just the way he wanted (The Right Way, in case you're interested).  He was thinking out loud.  He would ask me for my help specifically if he wanted that, but he was certainly not asking for my opinion.  

Terminus of the drain 

You see, the Hub and I work differently. Very differently. He is a deliberater, a planner.  At times, he is even an inventor.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you The Rock Sifter (patent not pending). 

Me? When it comes to our outside spaces at least, I am more a grab the shovel and let's go and I'll problem solve when I get there, type.  Rather than avoid difficulties up front I usually figure I'll just learn from my mistakes.  As many times as it takes.

As the years of marriage accumulate, I've made my peace with the idea that The Hub and I are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of how we approach projects. Slowly, painfully at times, I realized our differences are not necessarily a negative.  As a matter of fact, between us, there's almost nothing we can't get done once we set our (different) minds to it.

And don't get me wrong. It is by no means me doing all the putting up with.  The Hub may currently get twitchy every time he sees me working in certain areas with a shovel but he can be readily forgiven for doing so. Though I do try to be very careful, rarely, and the initial excavation for the French Drain was one of those times, me and my shovel wreak absolute havoc. 

Because when The Hub first told me about what he was thinking about doing, I immediately jumped in to "help" by personally digging out a trench he said he'd need through the flower bed at the far end of his proposed Grand Coulee Ditch.  

I was dead certain it would be better if I cleared those spaces, since the flowers that had to be dug out were flowers I'd planted.  No resentment allowed, because I put them in and I'd be the one taking them out. So I didn't think. I just dug. And, in so digging? Me and my helpful shovel broke the sprinkler wire.  

In three different places.

Anyway, it is a ditch accompli now!  A thing of beauty and a joy forever, top to bottom.  Looking at how it ends and beyond, what you see represents several different jobs overall, and I'll leave you to guess which ones were The Hub's (think:straight lines and clean edges) and which ones fell under my purview (all the squiggly stuff, though I prefer to think of it as "organic").

That deceptively simple looking stretch of rock, our French Drain Extraordinare, is absolutely a triumph of man, my man, over matter. It is a master work, and because I helped, it represents the best of both our worlds. Weeks of thinking, days of digging, hours of rock hauling, minutes of hose wrangling, and yes, just a wee bit of sprinkler system wire reattachment.