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Stopped a guy outside the hardware store in Tucson who was loading 40 pounds of Quickrete, and what he said about his fence still bugs me
He mentioned he was pouring footings for a fence he'd already torn down twice, and when I asked why he just shrugged and said the dirt here moves a half inch a season. Never got his name but I think about that every time someone asks me about building out here. Anyone else get told something by a stranger that you can't shake?
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bettymurphy7d ago
That line about the dirt moving a half inch a season is the part that stuck with me too, but not for the reason most folks would guess. Everyone hears that and thinks about fence posts or cracking slabs. What nobody talks about is what it does to the water. A half inch a year sounds tiny until you add it up over 20 or 30 years, and that slow shift changes how rain runs off your land and where it pools. I have watched whole yards in this town go from draining fine to flooding the back corner, and the owners never put it together because there was no big event, just years of quiet movement. That guy tearing his fence down twice was not unlucky or bad at building, he was reading the ground better than most contractors around here do. The thing that bugs me is how many people just keep rebuilding in the same spot instead of asking where the dirt is heading next.
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