Hi Peter,

I like your plan! The standing water certainly is in an inconvenient spot right now - right where you are trying to walk!

And your new location seems like a good spot, where the risk of getting water into your basement is much, much less.

How will you get the water from where it puddles now, to where you want it to go? Will it work to just "move the dirt around" i.e. grade the soil so it flows there? Or do you need to do something fancier like make the water drain into a "french drain", which will move it to the new location?

By "french drain", I mean a ditch, filled with peagravel, that slopes down to the new location. You can put a pipe at the bottom of this ditch, or not.

Or, you might have another idea!