Water

When it rains, it pours.  When it pours, the creeks run.  When the creeks run, everything seems to come to life.  Between our home and the one next to us, about an eighth of a mile, these 2 creeks have been running.  They reshape the mountains, move rocks and did up the roots of trees, eventually pulling the trees down.

The sound of running water is the foundation of all sounds while the creeks run.  Wet is everywhere.  Hopefully some of this water is going to trickle down into the soil and eventually down into the aquifer that our wells all pull from.  It is a long process and it takes a bit of water to make it happen, but we have a lot of water.

Next summer, at this time of year, all of these woods could be dry with a lot less foliage.  It was like that our first year here.  That was what prompted me to establish rain barrels to catch water for the gardens.  They seem a little silly now, in someways.  But when the power was out after Hurricane Irene came thru, we had gravity pressurized water from these barrels, even though our well pump was out.  So I guess they make sense.

Many farms in New England have been either damaged or had entire crops lost due to the flooding.  How do I adapt to this cycle of life?  What do I see as my oppositions to this natural flow and how can I move with it.

The establishment of regional/local agriculture in every region or locale can create a food security by giving support to neighboring areas that go thru crisis.  When we get all of our eggs, or veggies, or meat, from one basket, then we make our selves vulnerable to the changes or hardships where ever that basket is.  We also become vulnerable to interruptions in delivery systems of those goods if they come from far away, and are delivered by only a few.

For us, the storm and being cut off from travel away from our home was novel, and a bit nice in it's quite and seclusion.  But, we were prepared.  For some it was not so good.  I suppose this is true of many situations.