The Ever Continuing Saga of the Ice, Snow and Rain

So...last night when I got home from work, it had snowed and rained and was continuing to rain...and the snowplow had gone by and made a mess at the end of the driveway. Rather than drive over it, I shovelled it away and let me tell you, it was heavy!! All fine and dandy because we had invested the money in paving the driveway last summer so it wasn't too bad...hmm...should have seen that as an omen of things to come!

Last night, Mike and I relaxing in the tv room, nice fire going...watching the Cosby show...enjoying the evening. Then I say "I think I hear water running"...we opened the back door and realized that it was quickly filling up with water that was gushing down the side of the house and filling in the concrete area and was about to overflow in our back door...our EMO plan kicked in :) What that means is panic and running, Mike pulled his rubber boots on and I ran upstairs to get my boots and the shovel. We went out side in the pouring rain to bail out the water. In the water is a lovely collection of leaves and sand that the water has washed away. This is all being thrown in the back yard.

At first we thought the gutter had overflowed as it had done once before, I went up the hill to look and realized that was not the case. Since we paid all that money to pave the driveway, it had a created a smooth surface for all the water flowing down the road to come down, it was pooling at the end of the driveway and it's quickest was down was under the steps on the side of the house, along the foundation and around the corner where it ran to the back door. I ran next door to get the ice beater upper thing and another shovel. I managed to carve out a path in the ice and snow with Mike (oh yeah, there was an ax involved in there as well) to redirect the onslot of water away from the back door down into the yard.

We then decided to get the sandbags out of the shed to reinforce the back door to keep the water out...guess what? The door was blocked with ice again...in between bailing and carving a path, we now had to get the ice away from the front of the doors to get the shed open. I think there may be some dents in the bottom of the door as our rage and frustration had mounted at this point and I was damned if I would unscrew those doors in the pouring rain. We finally managed to get the doors opened and hauled up the sandbags, sandbagged the back door.

We both went into the house exhausted and soaked to the skin...but the disaster was averted! Mike went out once more to bail that night but our tactics seemed to have worked for now but we have to find a better solution until it all thaws and we can have someone come in and find a way to permanently redirect the water.

We both looked outside this morning to see how our work looked in the light and to be quite honest, it now looks like our back door threw up!