Creek Walking
My brother, Joey, came over yesterday and tempted me out for a perfect
Saturday afternoon of creekwalking.
We passed trees whose
roots had been eroded bare by rushing water. (Notice the taproot
on the walnut in the center photo.)
Some of the flood-deposited debris was quite disturbing.... The
river cane, though, was awesome --- stands of wild bamboo holding the
bank in place.
As we walked downstream, the creekbed became a gully over fifteen feet
deep. From our excited gasps, you would have thought it was the
Grand Canyon. Lucy ran up and down the hillsides with ease, even
climbing eight feet up a tree at one point in an attempt to find a
shortcut to the other side.
There goes our creek,
flowing down into a sinkhole. This is the cause of our frequent
floods --- when water levels rise, the sinkhole reaches capacity and
then the creek just backs up, turning this whole basin into a
pond. Local lore says that someone shook a bag of flour down the
hole once. The marked water slipped down under a ridge, below the
river, then popped back up on the other side.
The best thing about
family is that they can share in your oddball hobbies, like soaking
yourself from the chest down for a couple of hours as you trace a creek
to its end. Thanks, Joey!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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