A Brook Runs Through It

When we found the house and learned that there was a small brook running through it, it seemed like a nice touch to put the place over the top. But the reality of living with natural flowing water on the property is something else entirely.

I've taken to taking my morning coffee for a stroll up its banks, while listening to its babble and watching the morning light sheen off its currents and falls. Yesterday, I sat on some boulders in the middle of the flow, close to the main falls at 'the wall', drank my coffee and just enjoyed my surroundings. I can't remember the last time I had felt so relaxed or at peace. Two of my cats, Shika and Jack, had followed me, and were joyfully playing among the rocks. After a lifetime of apartment captivity, they were getting comfortable with their new found freedom, not unlike myself.

Now that we've been here a few weeks, I'm getting used to the idea being out in the country, knowing that other than my unseen neighbors, there is not much chance of seeing anyone else, other than the two Jehovah's Witness who stopped by and offered to help us stack wood. I politely declined. No where else is this feeling of remoteness stronger than lost in the din of the brook. I can almost imagine farmer Hahn digging it out with his two oxen. It supposedly took him 32 years to do it. I'm sure that's 32 years on and off, when he had time.We've named it Oxen Brook it memory of those beasts.

Behind 'the wall' is what I think was a reservoir for said farmer Hahn to water his crops with, but I'm not sure. Now it's all quite marshy with a lot of fallen branches, leaves and silt, creating quite a bit of stagnant water. Come spring I'll clean it up as not to have mosquitoes and other stagnant water breeders.

Further back, the limit of my explorations thus far, the brook resumes its previous look, I stopped at the next falls as it was getting late. The only recent addition to the brook is a small wooden footbridge about half way between 'the wall'  and the house.

Scattered around the brook are 3 foundations to buildings whose original purpose is lost to time. I know one of them was a barn but the other two remain a mystery. One is on a rise, covered in growth, overlooking 'the wall', the other hidden by trees which are older than me.

The people who lived here before us unfortunately neglected the brook and the land around it. They just stayed on their manicured lawn, kept safe by their white picket fence. There is enough dead wood littering the floor of the woods to keep us in kindling throughout the winter and the poor brook was running badly; It almost seemed as if it was ill. When I look at it now, after the work I have done, it seems healthier, faster, and with a more pleasing babble than when I arrived.

Christy and I are looking forward to the spring when we can begin to shape the property into something beautiful and special, and the brook is the centerpiece of all of that.

Post by Rob