The first two times were from torrential rains not associated with a tropical system. The last two times were associated with Florence and Michael. My front yard is usually lush and green (we inherited a nice lawn from the previous owners and I've just tried to maintain it) but this summer devastated it. I managed to keep it halfway decent up until Florence, but that was the tipping point. After that, large areas just died completely. I worked like crazy to prep it for overseeding, though I didn't aerate this time, because I didn't have time, but also because the ground was SO soft that I was afraid the aerator would just tear things up instead of removing solid plugs.

Thankfully I seeded the front yard in time for the seed to take root, and it's filling in nicely. I'll overseed again in the spring to fill in the areas that are still thin then, and assuming we don't have another monsoon season next summer, I expect it will be back to looking good again by June.

The backyard has been an ongoing work in progress. It was an overgrown jungle with virtually no grassy areas when we moved in, so I had the interior section cleared with a bobcat not long after we moved in and I planted grass. It's been a struggle to keep grass growing there because we have such a dense tree canopy in the back yard, but it's gotten better year to year. I've never wanted to cut down some of the nice shade oaks we have, but I think I've finally just reached the point where the headache of cleaning up leaves and acorns, plus the stress of worrying about the trees falling on our house, far outweighs the desire to keep the trees. So, once I save up a little bit more money, I plan to have several trees cut down. That will go a long way to easing my mind come storm season, but it will also help tremendously with maintaining a lawn in the back.