It’s been in the 50s, almost the 60s, here for the past couple of days, and the ice is slowing withdrawing into the shadows. The worst of it at our house continued to be the ice pond over the French drain. As late as Sunday it was still a solid block of ice.
I came home last night to find that it was mostly water, but still a standing pool—not draining. I looked closer at the one big chunk of ice that was left and realized that it sat over the drain, so I took a pair of downed branches and levered it away. What did I see? The grate of the drain—with ice visible through the holes. So I flipped the drain gate out of the way, and saw a solid block of ice going down into the mouth of the drainpipe. Insert heavy sigh.
Fortunately, getting the grate off provided other places for the water to escape, so by the time Lisa and I got home from dinner the pond was drained for the first time since Valentines Day. Going forward, I’ve got to figure out a method to keep that drain clean.