I have no tractor, but I have several shovels, a pick, a hoe, an axe, and a digging bar (and a sore back
).
The lower half of my small suburban backyard has become one big drainage ditch. Rainwater used to pool up deep enough to float a canoe, and take a long time (days) to percolate in solid (lousy) clay soil. In the past, I put a submersible pump back there and ran a hose over the fence to the street (to the storm drain) and it would run for hours.
Last year, I dug a drainage ditch inside my solid back fence and a drain hole (with 6" tube) from the ditch under the fence (in completely root bound soil I had to use the axe to chop up). So now I don't get a lake down there anymore. Just a big mud hole.
The mud hole got improved a bit recently when a neighbor got a new driveway, and I trucked home a big pile of jack-hammered concrete chunks I threw down in the bottom of my drainage ditch. It's still a mud hole, but now I have something to step on.
It was either this or I was going to stock it with some small fish and a couple turtles.
Regular rain is not a big problem, but we get enough torrential downpours and monsoons reminiscent of Noah and his big boat which is a problem.
I'm happy it's not really visible to the public, only me. And I try not to look at it.
