Holding Back the Flood

It's raining. Normally that would be a wonderful thing. Rain instead of snow means Spring instead of Winter and that's an excellent thing. ... Isn't it? Well, normally the answer would be a resounding "yes" except when Winter's grip is still firmly in place. So we're getting rain - a lot of it - but the ground is still frozen and we've still got snowbanks everywhere, sometimes towering into the massive mountains of snow that you'll see in the major shopping center parking lots. Where does all of this rain go? 

Although this particular photo is from Cleveland, Ohio, their
parking lot snowpiles are pretty similar to what you'll find
here or anywhere else in the snow belt. Huge, high piles of
snow around the periphery of the parking lots. 

That's the problem. We don't hate rain, but when the rain has nowhere to go, we get flooding. Bad flooding. The low points in the freeways flood out, the low points in parking lots become temporary lakes, the roadways get lovely glare ice because the water sheets down them, and here, in our cozy home, I will get the job of checking the back door regularly throughout the day today to make sure we're not flooding through it. 

Do you remember this photo from 2016? Here, DH was in full
"build" mode, constructing the curved tiered walls that make
up the western part of our lower back yard. I'm standing just
about where my back door is located. 

The back door is where DH has been building the castle over the past few years,. The curved and terraced walls of flowers and other plants, the herringbone patio we had set two years ago, and the cleared bank for the eventual pergola we were fixing during buckets of rain last summer. The difficulty isn't the construction work, it's the fact that there's no real channel established for the run-off just yet, and right now the water level is almost up to the level of my basement door. If DH gets a chance, he'll try to clear away some of the ice on the patio and create a larger channel for the rainwater, but if he doesn't get the chance, I might be doing that myself in the pouring rain later this morning. 

A year or so after the construction above, we got the patio laid. It's
done with paver stone in a herringbone pattern. They did an OK
job - not the greatest, but OK. We used it often last year, though,
sitting on the patio and enjoying margaritas. 

Of course I also have the usual stuff for my "day off" - shopping (grocery and Target today will make it an expensive day), catching up on reading and writing my daily story for B2MeM, a nice chat with Aearwen this afternoon, and several loads of laundry. I also have to gather our paperwork for our Tuesday night income tax appointment with our accountant. Yeah - it looks like a busy day, even without the rain, glare ice, and ... yeah! 

So here's hoping your weather is a bit better than mine and that you have a wonderful Wednesday. It's a fact that I'm still planning to be back tomorrow, although I might be crabby from having my schedule totally disrupted by floodwaters coming into my den. Been there, done that, and really don't want to experience that again.