Monday, March 22, 2010

Nowhere To Run


Today when I finally got out to the land. I heard the sounds of heavy machinery working in the distance. When I stood on top of our "great wall" I could see a tractor working on a road on another hillside. I walked down the road and saw what I had somewhat expected, the road project had once again gotten out of hand.

A little background on the ground. In late November a few guys showed up to extend the road that goes past our land. No big deal, right? Well the "road engineers" used their heavy equipment to make a road and also dump tons of dirt into a very small river that runs very close to us. When the rains came in February the little river had nowhere to run and the water made a small pond.

Just a few weeks ago I noticed that there were many, many bug larvae waiting to get there start on life. So, with my trusty pick and shovel, I started to try to open the river back up. I was very slow going. My back paid the biggest price. Then just this last Wednesday I hired my own heavy machinery to finally finish the job. My back was very happy watching every load of dirt that they were able to extract.

That brings us back to today. So, when I go down the hill to see what they had done, I saw that they had basically made a giant parking lot over the area I had been trying to restore. After a few heated words I was able to convince the workers to come back and try to undo some of what they had done.

It is amazing how fast man with all of his fancy equipment can mess things up. It took many years for nature to make this little river work and now that they have messed it up and there is no way to replace what was lost.

1 comment:

  1. Good ole' Joni Mitchell...

    "They paved paradise
    And put up a parking lot
    With a pink hotel, a boutique
    And a swinging hot SPOT
    Don't it always seem to go
    That you don't know what you've got
    ‘Til it's gone
    They paved paradise
    And put up a parking lot

    They took all the trees
    And put them in a tree museum
    Then they charged the people
    A dollar and a half just to see 'em
    Don't it always seem to go,
    That you don't know what you've got
    ‘Til it's gone
    They paved paradise
    And put up a parking lot"

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