I’ve always wanted to live somewhere with running water on the property.  When I moved in last fall, we were at the tail end of a drought in New England, so it wasn’t clear if that wish had come true.  Now that we’re in the second big melt of the season, the streams declare themselves as soon as I walk out the door.  I’m still getting calibrated to this nature thing, so I’ve caught myself wondering why the traffic noise from Route 9 is so loud, and then I remember.

The stream on the west side of the farm is the confluence of a forest brook that runs under Centre Street with the drainage from the swale where I almost lost the tractor.

And then it runs through a culvert under the driveway.

This was all good until people started asking me how big the culvert is, and whether it was installed properly, and what I know about the historic flood levels in the area.  Really?  I was having a conversation with Bill Fosher about managing wet pastures that quickly veered into washing-out-the-driveway territory.  Then people seem to delight in pointing out all the places where roads have been obliterated by raging flood waters in the surrounding towns.  Now I feel like I need to recalibrate my paranoia…  if I’m not carried off by a flock of hungry sheep or eaten by my guardian dog, will I starve because I’ve been cut off from civilization by an undersized culvert?