#145

Unlike the local rivers, which have by and large undergone no major changes in all my time observing them--some important transformations in certain areas, but they don't flow drastically different than they ever did--the creek by my house has done some pretty extensive morphing. If I had to judge by how things go around here, creeks are far more dramatic than rivers.

Creek used to run much broader, never too deep but ten feet across in some places. The banks were shallower near the source but climbed high deeper in the woods, before pooling decisively as it channeled into a pipe running beneath the highway, a second pipe presumably spitting out the creek's further course on the other side.

The construction of the pond, which diverted some of the stream's flow, thinned the creek to a trickle. Treeline claimed what had once been bank, then bed. But the trickle meant business, and cut new, deep banks close to the source and running by the pond, and even reclaimed four feet of bed at its widest point in the woods, where it had to find an entirely new, more circuitous course to the culverts. Regaining breadth even as it cuts ever deeper into the world, despite the school redesigning the ponds to curtail erosion.

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Creek nonsense concludes next post! My youngest brother is in town and I want to kill virtual monsters and talk shit with him.


--JL