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Okay, time for the before and after shots. Fun stuff. Only took what, four hours to drain? That’s not bad. I’ll have to keep an eye on it now, I did have to uncover the drain one more time (right before taking this shot). If nothing else, I feel like I accomplished something. Time to celebrate with some lo mein.

Before:

After:

Put up our American Flag today. Seemed like a good day for it.

Also, two images were added to the earlier entry, in case you’re re-visiting.

I was trying to find a phone number for a place in Leominster MA but in Google most of the responses for Leominster pointed to Leominster England sites. Yes, we are named after them, as are many many New England towns. Anyway, I stumbled upon a page that said:

“Leominster (pronounced ‘Lemster’) dates back to the 7th Century and is named after Earl Leofric, the husband of Lady Godiva who famously rode naked through the streets of Coventry on horseback.”

My God, I have never ever heard this before, and I would have remembered. Read it for yourself at http://www.leominster.co.uk/about.htm

p.s. We don’t pronounce it “lemster” in Massachusetts. It’s “lemon-stah”.

We’ve still got lots of snow piles here and there, so full-blown yardwork is out (I mean, we’re talking lots of much out there…) However, I got to do one of my favorite tasks this morning, in the 60 degree sunshine, in a short-sleeved shirt.

When this development was built, the slope of the land provided natural drainage down toward the railroad tracks. When 40 houses were put in, obviously the land was leveled, and that water wasn’t able to flow. As one of the first houses at my end of the development, that means my property gets very very wet in the spring. It’s not classified as wetlands (because before they put houses in it wasn’t) but man, right now it is. When the house was built the builder had a good idea this was going to happen and he put a drain in out there. My [favorite] job is to go out there and make sure the drain is clear of leaves and debris. Obviously there are a ton of leaves out there simply because it’s not cleared. Well I had noticed this week that there was a LOT of water out there, and I made a mental note to go clear off the drain. I’m so glad I did….That water had to be a foot deep OVER the drain! I moved the leaves and it started swirling down. Now this won’t get it totally dry, and I will end up going back out there in a week or two to make sure there’s a good flow from the absolute back of the property to the drain (because yes, a contractor built a house abutting my property that drains into my yard, on a technicality that it drains out of a pipe maybe a foot on THEIR yard first. Which is sloped and the water obviously comes right into my yard.)

By summer it’s usually dry, but I don’t really want a quarter of an acre of standing water in my backyard all spring, if you know what I mean. We got over 100 inches of snow, plus some extra rain lately. The ground is still frozen and the water has no place to go. If you have a canoe, come on by!

Click thumbnails for larger (100k-ish) images.

My new daughter-in-law is still hanging around. Apparently she slept in the spare room last night. She hung around with us in the car today but at some point she must have wandered off because he hasn’t talked about her or to her for 5 or so hours now.