We’ve been in the middle of a cold spell all week, temperatures have been below freezing since this weekend. The humidity has been very dry though, not even frost. There was a bit of crystals on the car windshield this morning when I took Younger to school, but just on the bottom driver side corner.
During the summer, my neighbor decided to put a pool in his backyard. He thought he’d get around building permits for a new deck by digging a hole in for the pool which would allow the deck to be built below the height limit that would have triggered a permit. He hired a crew to come in with a small earth mover and dig a large forty foot hole in the backyard. Once the hole was dug they discovered that the ground was too saturated to provide a sturdy foundation for the pool, so they decided to wait until the ground dried out.
That was almost six months ago. We live in a low lying coastal area, the threshold of my door is about eight feet over the high tide marker, so he effectively dug the bottom of the hole close to sea level. It has not dried out, and every time it rains water collects in the bottom of the hole. On top of that, he still has the excavated dirt piled up around the hole. It’s really something.
I bring it up because before the cold spell hit we had some tremendous storms. I think it rained for three days. My neighbor’s hole must have had four inches of water in it when the freeze came.
He’s basically got an ice rink in the backyard now.
I’m not too concerned about it, other than I worry that he still thinks he can put a pool back there. I know he’s down fifteen hundred on the work and that his wife is none too happy about it. I just imagine that springtime will come around and he’ll still be waiting for the hole to dry out, meanwhile mosquitoes are breeding in the water. I’m trying to be a good neighbor here, but I still can’t help question his judgement. Not that I haven’t had my lapses in good sense, but this is something else entirely.