“Hey Mom, We have a lake in our Backyard!”

We just posted a picture on Facebook of the torrential hail and rain storm we had on Easter night.  I was reading immediate comments from friends in Texas who pleaded me to send the rain to their drought stricken lands. Man, I thought, I’m sure glad I don’t have to worry about big droughts like we used to have in Texas. 

The rain sounded like it was getting heavier and my son decided to turn on the lights to the back yard again to see what was going on.  “Who put a milk jug in our back yard?” he asked.  “Hey Mom, we have a lake in our backyard!”  John and I both ran out to the deck and sure enough…these were the flash floods the weather guys on TV were warning us about.  We live 4 houses down from the Arkansas River and there is a cove directly across the street…to top it off, we live at the bottom of what is known in these parts as “Wildcat Mountain,” so there is a lot of run off water that drains through a culvert to the cove next to our yard and our neighbor’s.

First rounds of our punishment for eating tooooo many Easter chocolates- high winds, cracking branches, hail and torrential rain

Here’s the backyard about 20 minutes after the hail shot above…all under rushing water.

Notice the fence line and especially the chain length fence that is running downhill. Yes, the water filled our back yard up like a teacup and just took everything in it’s path. I had just finished laying mulch around all of our flower beds on Friday, wouldn’t you know.  That mulch is long gone…this is the side of house looking over the fence to our neighbor’s yard.  Bet that was a muddy pool.

Same side view of the house to the neighbor’s yard from the front yard perspective.  There is an underground culvert buried underneath that river of water on our nice, thick zoysia grass.  Notice the log floating out to the street!

The street sewer was so back up from all the debris.  A big thank you to my husband and our neighbor for braving the elements with shovels to dig as much stuff out of the way so the storm drain could do it’s job.  We found all kinds of things in our backyard (the water force pushed down the chain length fence and allow all these things in…a ball, a frisbie, and a milk jug! 

More storms are predicted up through Wednesday night.  You can’t walk on the ground…too much like quicksand.  What a mess.