Nicaraguan Gardens Part 2

I am finally getting around to post. Nate passed through on the Atlantic side of Nicaragua but brought torrential downpours to the Pacific side for 5 solid days. Water, water, water everywhere. We have a canal that we built last year that runs along our wall in the front of the property. Without this taking the bulk of the water we would have been in worse shape and had more damage. And most likely would have needed a boat to leave the property. In my eleven years of living in Nicaragua, this is the first time that I have seen continuous torrential rain for 5 days and nights.

I haven’t any photos to show you the damages but I can tell you we escaped a catastrophe. We had one tree, my flowering Malinche Tree was lying on the ground one morning. I thought I had lost it, but I have some hired help here for the next few weeks helping to construct a second canal and 6 of them managed to replant the tree and add some supports until it can get re-rooted. (more on this a little later).

The canal we are building is to supplement the one on the outside of the wall. This one on the inside to drain the water from the first on to the salt flats at the back of the property. Unfortunately, we didn’t get it started soon enough or completed enough, whichever you prefer.

We are building it with large rectangular quarried blocks of rock and cementing them in place. These blocks each weigh about 80 to 100 pounds. More when rain-soaked. We had one side completed and the other started when the rains came. Needless to say, the completed side collapsed. So it needed to be cleaned up and restarted but the water was about 3 feet deep in the canal. That had to be drained first.

Then I got a message from my neighbours’ father-in-law who was watching their animals while they were away on vacation sent me a text that said:“HELP ME!” Nothing more.

While I was getting the Jeep ready to leave I got another message from Sweden “The wall has collapsed. Check on Lars”.

Off we went. We hadn’t been off the property in 6 days by now and have no idea how bad the roads are. Ours was pretty washed out but we had no problem getting the Jeep through.

When we arrived we found 16 meters of wall totally collapsed with debris splling over into the swollen river. Another 16 meters of wall was in danger of collapsing.

We found Lars and the dogs safe inside the property, calmly having a coffee. Thank goodness all were fine. The wall - not so much.

We rounded up some help from the neighbors. Because of all our recent construction, we had the extra materials needed. A few hours of hard labor in muck to the knees, two pots of homemade soup and buns later, the hole was closed and the leaning wall braced. Next comes the rebuild.

Never a dull day on the homestead...