The Maiden Voyage

     It's unbelievable how screwed up my schedule is.  But it is what it is.

     Now, about that unsightly downspout.

     After weed eating the bejabbers out of the flower box in the front of the house, I needed a solution for the downspout.

     It always drained to the front of the flower box, which meant it drained on the sidewalk, which meant it didn't get enough drain distance from the house to keep from eventually making it to the basement.  

     Problem solved.

     I had this really large flower pot that was made out of foam.  Oh yeah, they look beefy, but you can pick them up with one finger, if said finger is in the right place.

     This pot has served many purposes.  It has housed a banana tree and several other plants over the years.  Since I decided to cut back on the amount of potted planters for this year, I came up with an idea......Why not use the pot for another purpose?

     And so I did.

     After some careful calculations, which my husband rolled his eyes at, I decided the large foam pot could be used as a "catch" for the water that runs off the front porch.  

     I got out my trusty Dremel tool, installed a Roto Zip blade in it and cut a nice angled hole in the side of the pot.  This was for a piece of downspout to fit in.  Despite the hole being a bit larger than what I had anticipated, I figured that is why God made caulking. The downspout from the pot was to direct the water from above to a different location, further away from the house. 

     I showed my husband the design, already in progress, and "viola" he agreed it just might work.  Naturally, I wanted this to be done in an afternoon, but alas, the super-duper caulking took longer to set up than I expected. We had to caulk the sides we could see, which would be three of them, and then wait until the next day to caulk the fourth side of the hole.

     After the fourth side of the hole was caulked, we had to wait another day for that to set up......As much as I hate to admit it, it's probably a good thing I had his assistance because I would have blooped a whole bunch of caulking all the way around it and been done.

     This morning, we turned the entire thing up right and set it in position.  I placed some bricks in the pot for stability and patiently waited for some rain.

     I didn't have to wait long.

     We had a nice shower this evening.  Lucky for us, we did not get the ping pong ball size hail that our neighbors to the north had to endure. We ran out to the front porch with a flash light to check the functionality of the downspout pot.

     It was perfect.  No leaks and the water was running out in the yard, where it needed to be in the first place.  

     The downspout pot survived its maiden voyage, so I wonder what I can think of next.....I already have something in mind....