Rain Rain Go Away

Rainy days - who doesn't love them?  The misting drizzle this morning was a beautiful backdrop to my breakfast on the screen porch.  it is so quiet in my backyard, the sound of the rain falling through the woods behind the  house is a melodic soundtrack to a relaxing sunday spent reading from my collection of old Calvin and Hobbes treasuries.  Still one of my all time favorites after all these years. 

Anyway, the relaxing morning turned into an afternoon of mud, sweat and tears. You see, I live at the bottom a hill. Whnver it rains a lot, it comes down my driveway, into a dry creek bed and around the back of my patio.  At least that is what is supposed to happen.  Occasionally, when we get lots of rain, it backs up into my back yard, overflows the patio and screen porch and floods the swimming pool. 

So, in the middle of all the rain we had today, I put on  my boots and dug two draining ditches, built a mud levee and dredged out the existing channel.  Hopefully, no  more flooding. 

When I started, this area was completely under water, just like the older photos. I guess it doesn't look like much in the photo, but that is about 3 hours of backbreaking shoveling.   Not the prettiest engineering in the world, but I bet the next three days of rain forecast will not flood my pool again.   And after it dries up, I guess I'd better get back out there and make it look pretty.