My Backyard

I love my backyard... well, it's really my backyard and the parts beyond it.

So my actual backyard is fairly small. Which is great because that means I don't have that much lawn mowing to do in the summer months.  But beyond my backyard lined with 20 ft pine trees, there's a giant ditch. This giant ditch has provided tons of entertainment for me and my friends.

You see, it's really a drainage ditch for the area. It's about 70'x40'. That's about the size of a swimming pool... to help you understand how big it is. Along the sides, there's a steep downward slope into the middle of it. The slopes are about maybe 30 degrees and about 12 ft down. And these features of it make it perfect for a number of reasons.

-- Whenever it rains excessively, as it quite often does in the summer months, the ditch fills with water. This essentially means that at the end of these large rainstorms, I have a personal pond in my backyard. Ew. Gross. I know. But for some reason in high school, my friends and I thought that it was a good idea go to swim in it. and by swim, it really turned into mudslinging. and really, it was a lot of fun.

-- In my early college years when I was home for the summer, on the dry-er days my friends and I craved somewhere to drink. The slope was great for nights because we'd put out a blanket, lie down, and look at the stars... while drinking. But then of course, this had to be ruined by a neighbor who thought that the citronella candle that we had lit was going to start a giant fire that would eat up his house. damn stupid neighbors.

-- For my 21st birthday, I had a rather nontraditional 21st birthday... I didn't go out to a bar. Let's face it. Going to college in NYC meant plenty of bar-hopping for me already. Instead I got a slip and slide (and some tarp to make it longer). I placed it downward on the slope and had my own water slide. However, it was wet and kinda messy towards the end. But nonetheless, quite fun :)

-- Now, on this day of a giant snow storm, I sit in my bed as I work-from-home. I look out my window to watch little kids sledding down the slope. It's quite cute. If I weren't so afraid of snow, I'd probably go join them. Each with their sleds, they fly down the slope -- forwards, backwards, standing... in one's and in two's.

It's days like this that I really love that slope in my backyard :)