The Sound of Running Water

Across the Fence #331

I think it’s finally arriving. Spring is in the air. I heard it in the sound of running water. During my walk this evening, water was running in the ditches and flooding the low spots in the fields. It was nice to hear that sound again. It’s been a long winter. We still have huge piles of snow around our house and yard, but patches of brown are finally breaking through the white landscape of fields around us.

I notice it in the evenings too. It’s darker outside as we begin to lose our snow cover. Snow has a way of softening and lightening the landscape. Now those spreading dark patches, add to the darkness of the night. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, take a walk outside in the evening and you’ll see. Although, by the time you read this, the snow may be all gone.

Over the weekend I went for what was probably my final trek on snowshoes for the winter. The snow is now crusted from the daily thawing and freezing temperatures. It wasn’t the usual quiet adventure across fields and through wooded areas. There was the constant crunching of snow with every step I took. I wasn’t about to sneak up on any wildlife this time for photo opportunities. It’s typical maple syrup making weather with freezing temperatures at night and mild, sap-running temps during the day.

This is late winter, early spring weather with all its contrasts. It’s a great time of year to get out and enjoy the many sights, sounds, and smells of nature in transition. Maybe I’ll take a pass on some of the smells. We’ll come back to that subject later.

What other time of year could you enjoy snowshoeing along snow-covered fence lines and hear water running through the ditches and streams from the snow melt? I also snowshoed around the pond that’s now full from the melted snow that runs down through the little valley behind the house. There was still a layer of ice from the recent cold nights, but I wouldn’t want to venture out on that ice. It looked pretty thin.

I remember when a bunch of us neighborhood farm boys would sweep the snow off the ice on cold winter days and play hockey on it. I think I’ve mentioned before that none of us had skates, and we didn’t have hockey sticks or a puck either. A tobacco lath with a shorter lath cut and nailed at an angle to one end, became our stick. It sort of looked like a hockey stick. I don’t remember what we used for a puck. We could have used a frozen cow pie, but that would have been too big! I guess we just shuffled around the ice in our four-buckle boots and tried to keep from falling down, while trying to hit whatever the puck was, past the goalie. By the way, we didn’t have a net either. I think we just built a couple piles of snow and tried to shoot the puck between the piles. It was simple, inexpensive fun. Although I don’t think Dad would have been very happy with those broken tobacco laths at ten cents each.

I wish the pond would hold water year-round like it did in the past. It seems to have turned into a sinkhole and the water quickly disappears. A dried up water supply doesn’t help keep the deer and other wildlife around. When I was young, I don’t remember the pond ever running dry, except if there was a very dry summer.

Another thing that concerns me is that manure could run off the surrounding fields and into the pond. Where does that water that’s disappearing end up?

Speaking of manure, as I was walking past the old barnyard this evening, the smell I mentioned earlier brought back thoughts about hauling out manure in the spring. This time of year, there would be a huge manure pile behind the barn where we had been dumping and stockpiling it all winter when Dad couldn’t get in the fields.

When the pile thawed out in the spring it was time to haul it out to the fields and spread it for fertilizer. We loaded it, one pitchfork at a time, into the manure spreader. We got to help after school and on weekends. Dad didn’t get a manure loader on the tractor until I had headed off to college. I guess he had a manure loader before that time—I just wasn’t mounted on the tractor.

Things sure have changed since those days when most jobs were done by hand. Tractors and all the attachments certainly changed farming. It’s no wonder the farmers were so strong and in such good shape. No one had to head for a health club at the end of the day, and pay a membership fee, to get their exercise. They just wanted to sit down and rest after working 14-16 hour days. When I think of all the physical labor people once had to do, not that many years ago, it’s a wonder they had time to do anything except work. They didn’t have to worry about losing weight either.

Those are some of the memories that running water from the melting snow triggers, as it sloshes through the recesses in my mind.