Boundaries and Water
This time of year storms pummel us with wind and rain; we watch the ditches along our long gravel driveway like hawks. One branch or clump of leaves stopping up the ditch can wash out the road in a matter of minutes. Donald has resisted asphalting our driveway. We think of the driveway as a dialogue with natural forces.
When we first improved the old trading route and wagon trail that crests the ridge into the large meadow south of our home before dropping into Pickle Canyon, we wanted the memory of its naturalness to remain, and its lessons. The road sensitizes us to how the water flows down the mountain, where it goes then, the impact on the fragile hillsides when it gets diverted. Water defies boundary, dissolves them. In our area there are still moderate steelhead runs in Redwood Creek and Dry Creek; muddied waters will contaminate the clean waters and threaten these populations.
This is only one of the reasons that we need to be cognizant of the erosion that can happen through how we manage our land— and our driveway. For us farming is relearning how to be in balance with what else moves and lives here, one of the reasons we chose the ongoing rigor of Biodynamic and organic certification.
| Rain gauge registers 1 inch of rain. |
