In those first few years of home ownership, I really got a kick out of mowing the lawn every week, clipping back the trees and plans, and making sure the weeds were taken care of. Then the kids came onto the scene and where did all my free time go?
We noticed that the sidewalk in front of our house was much blacker and dirtier from the water drainage the side walk in front of the neighbors houses. On inspection, the neighbors have these nice drains that pump the water out from the backyard onto sidewalk, whereas our water seemed to just bubble up through the dirt. I mean, that seems like a reasonable explanation for why there was so much dirt on our sidewalk.
Then I got to wondering, when I moved to "minimum viable yard care" - did somehow I have drains where dirt erosion just covered them up? The answer was, yes and yes. There were two. Guess it would have been better to uncover before these record winter rainfalls.