Don’t Let MSD Do Your Landscaping

We’ve had a lot of rain this week, effectively flipping the switch from drought to flood. Today’s storm concluded with flurries. It really hit home to me how quickly that we are now diving down towards winter solstice, those dark times. Anne and I did our annual joint Thanksgiving Day grocery shop. Normally, I do all the food shopping and on those few occasions that I find Anne in the store with me, she seems to me to be a bit of a fish out of water, but that’s just me. Today’s bill was less than normal, but that may be because we forgot to buy the beer. The photo shows the front yard of some poor unfortunate. Actually, the whole street looks like this or worse. There are dozens of these concrete blocks strewn about. The sewer district is un-crossing the streams, septic and storm. This is just a couple of blocks from us, but my prayer is that we don’t have to enjoy a similar experience. This street is east of the open storm sewer that these blocks are slated to empty into. We are west of said storm sewer and really are only on the fringe of the abatement area. So, we just might skate. After the height of this week’s rains, when the sump pump was running and all of the concrete cracks were weeping, I noticed the telltale sign of a sewer backup. We’ve had so many over the years that I’m now an expert. I tried to recreate the backup, but to no avail and was trying to convince myself that the backup hadn’t actually happened. Then today, MSD showed up and began snaking out the middle of the street, making all sorts of noise. This is bad news, because if a big rainstorm could do all this to our street, then maybe having MSD landscape my yard is still in the offing, but I hope not.