Every spring the runoff flows down a slight decline to fill the dugout. It was engineered that way about fifty years ago – a very simple sort of engineering, but an alteration to the natural landscape so that the farm could have water for human and livestock.
So although the flow of the spring runoff past our trees (planted, not native, and thus another imposition on the natural landscape, but that’s another story) is man-made, it seems natural, and it works in tandem with nature’s natural ways. The water flows downhill and collects in a basin – in this case, a deep hole that was dug out of the earth – hence the name, dugout. Simple. Vital.
Runoff time is an exciting event in the year, when winter’s grip finally loosens and the pent up accumulation of a few months’ worth of precipitation with it. Some years the flow is too much, risking flooding the yard. Other years, when there’s not a lot of snow, the flow is minimal, just enough to fill the dugout. This year it’s about normal in my estimation.
Today was colder than the last few have been, and so the water that had started running froze up, its movement arrested. Like time standing still.
One of the reasons I even noticed this is because I’m out at the farm for the time-being, keeping my dad company and waiting out a pandemic. Normal work obligations and hustle bustle have ceased, as they have for much of the western world. Our movement has been arrested. Only what is essential continues to operate.
And because of it, I have the time to wander around the farm the way I did when I was a young girl, watching spring’s unfolding, noticing things, being present. Observing man-made engineering slow to a halt at Nature’s whim.
