Life on the River, High Water Marks
Ron told me that when he lived and worked on the
Kentucky river lock #10 that he could see high water marks on the old trees
on the rivers banks. He was told that Dan'l Boone cut one of them marks
when Dan lived in the area. People have been carving the sides of trees
for centuries to mark high water.
Two men, one man off and one man on duty manned
these small locks on the Kentucky River.
If you travel along the riverbank you can see
where boats were tied to trees on the high side of the banks some thirty
feet above the normal rivers edge.
When I visited my sister at her cabin on the
Licking River in Kentucky. I walked down to the river following a trail
that wound down the steep slope. I spied a steel cable hanging from one
of the upper trees right down to the rivers edge. A Jon boat was tied by
rope to the cable. I asked Jimmy, "Why the long steel cable?" he said the
river rises so fast in just three hours that you do not have the time to
take your boat out of the water.
Ron said that on the Kentucky River you had to
rely on the folks up river to keep up with your chores on that river. If
you did not have a warning of three hours ahead, the river would beat you
and you would loose. You would not accomplish what you needed to do before
the river ran you off. So a long line of communications was established
to forewarn the dam down river from you. It was a custom/common courtesy
to call the other lock below you. You were not far away from a phone when
you were on duty.
***
Hold the Moisture, Be Like the Cactus
Water has always run to the sea when the snows
of winter have melted. We the human beings have always tried to live near
these pools or streams of clear fresh water. Our friends the beavers have
always tried to contain this fresh water.
I do not have any clue why this is so or do I
know?
I think I know.
Beaver dams are everywhere in this large country
of ours. Man has taken advantage of this and built his home near these
beaver dams. Man has also created very large dams built of cement instead
of wood. Beavers find these large pools of water that man has created very
convenient. This does not stop them from building smaller pools in the
feeder streams that travel to these large lakes.
We have also learned to move this water to our
homes mechanically.
These pools of water also evaporate into the
air and travel to others parts of the country and fall to the ground as
rain.
So if more pools of water stand as lakes in any
area across this country the more there is a chance of rain nearby. These
large lakes put moisture into the atmosphere as does watering the lawn.
Water does not disappear as it moves and water is plentiful on this vast
planet, we just have not learned how to hold water in our soils.
Keep the "chemicals out and compost in", on the
piece of earth near you.
If you live in a desert climate it is important
to bring into the soil organic material to hold the moisture. If everyone
in a community held moisture in their soil the chance of creating an oasis
is much better that letting the sand take over? Learn from the cactus,
they have learned to hold the moisture.
***
If these pools of water are not cleared of sediment
they soon fill up and create high rivers.
The volume of water is lost and the great-created
lake fills with soil.
There is the other extreme where the lake is
so big that it creates
a great deep cavern of uncontrolled volume of
water
that could cause havoc.
Somewhere there is a happy medium where the country
has plenty of water to fulfill all our needs.
Kentucky Links
More on
Dan'l
A Kentucky
man, James Hatcher
Lock
#10 Kentucky River
Cactus Tropical Garden
Gollum is learning the meaning of ....
badaba
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