Holliston LEED House

This is the story of a family who built the first LEED "green" house in Holliston, Massachusetts. We were trying to spend no more than it would take to build an ordinary house,and maybe even succeeded. The dust is still settling.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Sweet rain

Sorry, folks flooded down south, but we have been preparing for this day for three weeks. Days of digging trenches at a 1/4 inch drop per foot, and hand-perforating drain pipe with a drill (since it was a gift from a friend and thus, free). Finding and retrieving lots of coarse gravel and stone. Planting the perennials my generous friends gave me. Going around the ground with a pitchfork, putting holes in the hard ground. Six pickups full of loam/compost mix shoveled by hand and raked in, more Pearl's Premium eco-lawn seed, lots of lime, and now, finally, rain.

Our site took a beating from all the June and July rains before we had groundcover established. Raw, hard, reddish tan and hard as concrete, with exposed rocks and pieces of root, with the grass struggling through and a sheen of red or green moss was all we had. Soil improvement is a hard, dirty, and generally difficult job where the payoff is long-term. There are lots of reasons not to do it.

Now, hopefully, the payoff will come; with a healthier site, happier plants, and maybe next year, an ability to dig holes without a pick-axe.

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