Helping Water Escape Southeast Sioux Falls Backyard

It isn't exactly the Corinth Canal in Greece, or the Panama Canal, Panama, but it's my making and obviously something funny to others. Mostly, my wife. I'm talking about the swath of snow I've removed in my back yard recently with my snow thrower. I'll explain why I did it.

Remember the end of last winter? We had about a 2-inch rain that fell on about 2 feet of snow. It had been cold for several weeks. When that rain hit, it had to go someplace. Fast.

When I got home after work I noticed that the water had dammed up in my back yard. The snowdrift at the fence on the normally downstream side of my yard was creating a dam and water was backing up into my yard. Much deeper than it usually does.

My feet get cold thinking about the day. I shoveled, and I shoveled and I cleared a path for the water to get moving. My friend Dan always told me, about the only thing you can do with water is to help it get to where it wants to go.

I knew the water comes down the back of my lawn but that it takes a right and likes to go around the back of the neighbors' fence. This year, I thought I would get a head start on the possible problem. I took my snow thrower and made a path. I know it may snow more and fill it. That's fine. I'll blow it back out. What I'm looking to do is to have a path of lesser resistance for the water to get out, after it starts moving.

So, how about you? Do you have an 'unusual chore' that you do around your place to avoid problems later on? If so, share it with me, and I'll share it with our readers. And listeners.

PS, as I finished up this story I noticed an interesting photo BOMBer (pun intended, I caught Molly the Black Lab at an inopportune time this afternoon and it was the only photo available at press time.

Here is a picture of last springs water work that protected my home from water damage.