In Many parts of the US people have swimming pools in their back yard. We have one on the front porch. We didn’t build it. It occurs naturally when we have big rain storms in the winter. This time. it came because of a snow storm. We don’t get much snow in the mountains south of Jerusalem.Once or twice a year is normal. It actually stays on the ground for over a day about once every third year. This time we got a nice load of snow on Wednesday. The ground was covered in white to depth of a round 2-3 inches. The accompanying wind broke off one medium sized branch from one of our back yard pine trees. The sun is out now, and trying (not very successfully) to melt the snow. I knew the storm was coming, so I took our shovel from the shed and put it inside the entrance near the front door. I just came in after using it to clear the sidewalk from our porch to the gate. What little snow there was that had accumulated on the stairs melted, and I didn’t go up to street level to see more. It was too cold.
The porch floor has a slight angle to direct accumulated water to the drainage hole in the corner away from the door. When storms scatter leaves on the porch, the flow takes them to the drainage hole. You probably guessed that the result was a blocked drain. The water from the current light drizzle and melting snow left us with a flooded porch. It’s not deep, just about 1 1/2 inches.But that’s enough to get over the soles of your shoes and wet your feet. I tried to push some of the water off the porch, but it just kept running back toward the blocked drain. I pushed a wooden stick through the drain. It went through far enough so that I could tell it had come to a halt somewhere beyond the outer edge of the porch wall. we have a lot of bushes planted there. So it seems our porch swimming pool is just an extension of the water and snow that is covering the lawn on that side.
The most distressing thing is the temperature. It was obviously below freezing when the snow started coming down. The sunlight that keeps peeking through the clouds at the moment is really trying to melt the snow. But the wind chill out there is enough to make it feel like freezing temperatures, or below, even in what sunlight there is.I was outside less than fifteen minutes. But it was enough for me to clear the sidewalk path, and to splash water into the toes of my shoes. My feet seemed to be pretending they were icicles when I retreated into house. First thing I did was change both my shoes and socks. Next came preparing a cup of hot instant soup and sitting down at the computer to write this.
Wetherhorn 