Nature, being delightful

There is a particular plant that is quite prevalent in this neck of the woods, and which I dearly love. In fact, year before last when I was arranging to have new plants installed in the flower beds on either side of my little front stoop, I wanted some of these plants, but the landscape fellow talked me out of it, assuring me that they grew from little bushes into big trees in no time at all, and would quite overwhelm my little house. So I've had to content myself with enjoying those I pass on my walks around my neighborhood, or as I drive to and from work.

The plant is Viburnum opulus Roseum, or the snowball bush. Big, white, round blossoms, that do, indeed, look like snowballs, beautifuly contrasted against a leafy green background. They appear in early summer and usually begin turning a dull pink in early September. When you've got some pink blossoms and some white on the same bush, it makes me think of the scene in Alice in Wonderland, when the Queen's gardeners are busy painting the rose trees. It looks like they've been called away in the middle of their work.

This year, for some reason, the snowball bushes began turning early, by the middle of August (because it's been so dry?). When I noticed this, I kept telling myself I must remember to take my camera when I went to work, so I could stop and take a picture of a completely white plant, on either the inbound or return trip. And of course I kept forgetting. When I finally remembered, this past weekend, I discovered that the battery on my camera was dead. And it was the weekend before payday; no discretionary funds for camera batteries.

And now, alas, it's too late; there isn't a bush left that is all white. I've missed my chance to get a picture of these beautiful bushes while they are in their most Fairy Kingdom stage. So, as I did with the picture of Ford's Theatre, I must again make do with a picture that someone else has produced. We'll call this Something That Gives Melody Pleasure.

Ka-boom!

I just watched a fascinating and exciting program on NOVA, Mount St. Helen's: Back from the Dead. All about how Nature reasserted herself after the devastating eruption of May, 1980.

Part of the program had to do with the eruption itself, and with the smaller eruptions that took place over the next few years (of which I was unaware -- I don't think the media was paying much attention, since those weren't cataclysmic eruptions). Although I already had a general idea of the mechanics of a volcanic eruption -- magma being pushed up from deep underground by pressure, until the pressure is so great the magma escapes through the surface, becoming lava once it reaches the surface -- it was interesting to learn that what provides the umph to the kind of eruption at Mt. St. Helen's is water in the magma, that has becomes gas as the result of the intense heat. Actually, it seems incredible that there could be water down there in the first place...wouldn't it be too hot, I'm thinking? And where would water be coming from, 62 miles down?

The program didn't go into either question, but the good ol' Internet has informed me that water arrives deep underground when (for example) the Pacific tectonic plate is pushed under the North American plate, taking with it the water that was on top of and in the interior of the layers that are pushed down. As soon as that water hits the high temperatures of the lower depths, it becomes gas, moving up with the magma toward the surface, miles above, and contributing mightily to the ultimate bang when the surface breaks open. You could say the volcano is breaking wind!

The geologist manque in me finds all this fascinating. But what really gets me is the idea that the earth is just going about its business of evolving, just as it always has. Plates moving -- accompanied by earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions -- causing land masses to move, inch by inch (looking at a world map you can see so clearly where South America at one time fit into the crook of Africa). These things have always happened, but now human beings are witness to their happening, thanks to the fact that there are now so many of us, living absolutely everywhere, and thanks to instant communication and satellite pictures. And because there are now so many of us, living absolutely everywhere, we are often inconvenienced by these happenings -- witness the devastation caused by the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia, the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chili, witness the massive shutdown of air transport with the eruption of the unpro-nounceable volcano in Iceland. But that is not the earth's concern; it is simply following the laws of its nature. As far as the earth is con-cerned we might as well not be here. And we mites (as humanoids are thought of by an alien entity in a Star Trek book I read recently) on its surface just have to run for cover when necessary. (And praying to the gods to keep the volcano from erupting ain't gonna help, either.)

There was again seismic activity at Mount St. Helen's in 2004. No eruption, no lava flow, but what the geologists call "spines" of lava were pushed up through the floor of the crater. This was truly fascinating, since in a very short period of time they were able to see these huge rock formations appear where none had existed before. But the gas that produces an explosive eruption has apparently dissipated. Until the next batch of gas-laden magma makes it slow but sure way to the surface...in 200 years? A thousand?

The earth is a hard taskmaster, but it certainly is interesting.

Spring is bustin' out all over

While I know many parts of the country have been enjoying spring for some time now (in Louisiana and southern California it comes in February!), here in central Maine it's been slipping in just over the past couple of weeks, which is actually a little early. Temperatures in the upper 50s/lower 60s, a decent but not depressing amount of rain making the grass start to grow again (Oh, no! Now I have to start worrying about how to keep it cut again!), blossoming trees breaking out their white and pastel colors overnight, sunshine yellow forsythia and brilliant fuchsia-colored azalea bushes making such a stark contrast with what was still a basically winter-brown background. But fat green buds were beginning to appear on all the branches, and today, for the first time, many trees were sporting a faint green haze.

I suspect that for most Mainers autumn is their favorite season (it is mine), but spring has its own special delights, and thanks to our normally long and snowy winters (though not this year -- we had no real snow storms after the first week of February!), Mainers are always so delighted to see it. Today when I went out to do some errands I saw that the rail trail running through Gardiner/Farming-dale/Hallowell/Augusta was crowded with folks jogging, biking, pushing baby carriages, walking dogs, and just strolling. Out enjoying the beautiful day.

One of my errands was unusually domestic, for me. I had decided I needed a new bathroom window curtain. What I've been using as a curtain for the two years that I've been in this house is one panel of some curtains my stepmother made for me years ago, to match the multi-colored blanket she had knitted for me. Those curtains hung in the windows of several tiny efficiency apartments that I lived in during my 19-year sojourn in Boston. But because they are consider-ably longer than my small bathroom window, I had taken just one panel and draped it up over the curtain rod. I always liked those curtains, mainly because they're so colorful -- bright aqua and blue, hot pink and red, with a small amount of black/white/gold thrown in -- but the pattern is very modern. All those colors appear in stripes of different widths, making it look rather like a painting by Mondrian. Not really appropriate for my conventional little bathroom with the wallpaper of tiny green garlands with cranberry-colored berries.

No, I needed real curtains, that fit properly, of a color that would go with my towels, and the tiny green garlands. And the brown woodwork.

So I drove into downtown Augusta, which basically is one street -- Water Street -- running for several blocks along the river. Augusta, for all that it is the capital city of Maine, really is just an overgrown small town. The numerous empty storefronts along Water Street testify to the fact that the old downtown has been supplanted, as in small towns throughout the country, by a huge shopping center at the northern edge of the city. It isn't a mall, because the stores are not connected, but there's a Walmart (the only store in the area open 24 hours), a Kohl's, a Home Depot, a Pier 21, all the usual suspects. Around the corner from all of this is a Sam's, a Staples (office supplies), a Barnes & Noble bookstore, the local multi-screen movie theatre. All your shopping in one convenient spot.

But I went to one of the businesses still doing business on Augusta's "Main St." The woman who owns the Cozy Cottage Fabrics and Rustic Furniture (how's that for a combination?) relined one of my coats this winter, and did a beautiful job. Even went the extra mile by driving all the way to Portland to get a green satin-like fabric, as she could find none in Augusta (including in her own fabric shop), and still she charged me only $45. So I figured she might just be able to produce a suitable bathroom curtain. I had already looked at Bed, Bath and Beyond, and found that the standard-sized curtains available are too long; and the woman I spoke with there said she'd never seen 30-inch long curtains for sale, anywhere. So it really seemed like custom-made was the only way to go.

I was disappointed that none of the fabrics on display came close to what I'd envisioned, but I finally settled on something I thought was really pretty -- a pattern called Stonehenge, which looks absolutely nothing like the pre-historic site, demonstrating that the people who name fabric patterns are as determinedly creative as the ones who name colors, (e.g., Sea Foam for green) -- and I thought it should go with everything it has to go with. Since I got back home and took another look at the bathroom, I'm having second thoughts, but the die is cast. The very pleasant and helpful woman who waited on me said it should be a couple of weeks...

And my next spring-induced activity? I may just buy a lawn mower!

Mother Nature has her say

Gardiner, Maine, along with neighboring Farmingdale, is currently experiencing its 15 minutes of fame, thanks to the fact that the border between the two towns is where the most impressive, mile-long Kennebec River moving ice patch has gotten stuck. This ice jam, which was caused by unusually warm temperatures and heavy rains combining to loosen ice upriver and start it moving down toward the sea, plowed ruthlessly through Augusta, a couple of miles from Hallowell, where I work, and seven miles from Gardiner, where I live, on Tuesday, January 26th. The ice jam caused sudden, abrupt flooding, with water pouring into the ground floors of stores all along Water Street. It's called Water Street for good reason, running right beside the river with the buildings, and the parking lot behind them, all that separates it from the water. The parking area completely disappeared, and the news was full of shots of the one car that didn't get moved in time (people had about 15 minutes warning), with just the top of its roof showing.

The ice jam proceeded to cause the same inundation in Hallowell, right next door. Lucky Gardens, the Chinese restaurant that I and the rest of Hallowell frequents, wasn't so lucky; they paid the price for being right on the river, with lovely views from the windows that run all around the dining room. Their basement (ground floor) was flooded, burying their furnace and oil tank under water, resulting in no heat. When I went by to pick up my lunch on Wednesday, I discovered that the restaurant was open for take-out only, because of the no-heat situation; and the very strong stench of oil, as the oil company was trying to drain the basement. I stood for a few minutes at the windows, staring in amazement at the great blocks of ice that had been thrown up beneath the windows, where there would normally be the narrow, unpaved road that runs behind the buildings on Hallowell's Water Street. This road serves as a parking area for the people who work and live in the buildings, but there sure wasn't anybody parked there now.

While the owner and I were chatting about the situation, a bedraggled young woman from the Bangor television station came in with her cameraman, and asked Jack if she could interview him. He was hesitant, because his English, as with so many Chinese working in Chinese restaurants in this country, is awkward at best (and why is that? Is it that Chinese is so different from English, it's especially hard to learn, or is it that these workers spend so much time with their fellow Chinese, speaking that more familiar language, that they don't get sufficient practice?) The reporter and I both assured him his English was fine, and when I saw him later on the news, effective editing had saved him unnecessary embarrassment, while making clear the plight of his and so many businesses in both Hallowell and Augusta. He was going to have to get a new furnace, a huge, unexpected expense.

But for the rest of us, this has just been a fascinating experience, watching Mother Nature assert herself, watching this blanket of ice -- not smooth, but covered with huge white shards and blocks -- make its sluggish way down our river. And now it's "parked;" since it's gotten extremely cold over the last few days (0 degrees at night, the teens during the day) it's anybody's guess when it will move again. Both yesterday and today people were parked all along the very busy corridor that connects Gardiner/Farmingdale/Hallowell/Augusta -- the road I drive every day, twice a day -- and were standing on the embankment, gawking at the sight, taking pictures with their digital cameras. Melody went down late this morning with her undigital camera -- disappointed to see she had only four pictures left on her roll of film -- and gawked, and took her four pictures. A little excitement in our humdrum lives.

America's Best Idea

Like many of you, I've been enjoying Ken Burns' latest opus, The National Parks. Part II was especially inspiring, with its tales of those who fought to preserve our natural (and later, ancient cultural) wonders, against the relentless, single-minded commercial urge of the nation. I stand in awe of people like John Muir, who can fight year after year for a cause they believe in -- in his case, the preservation of the Yosemite Valley, and of all the land that eventually became Yosemite National Park -- despite setbacks, despite being up against powerful, moneyed opponents, despite simply not being successful, for so long a time. I consider it one of my character flaws that I am too easily discouraged; had I been in Muir's place, I fear I would have given up long before the moments of success could arrive.

But then, Muir's successes were often not quite complete -- as when he succeeded in having the high country around Yosemite Valley declared a national park, but not in getting the valley itself trans-ferred from the (indifferent) care of the state of California, to the federal government -- or they weren't permanent, as when the city of San Francisco managed to persuade the federal government to allow the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley to be dammed, to form a reservoir for the Bay Area. But he plugged on, he never gave up, which is of course what They always say: you must Never Give Up.

I've certainly learned lots of fascinating facts, thanks to Mr. Burns & Co. For one thing, I hadn't realized how far in the past John Muir lived, worked, wrote! I thought he was active, making his travels (to Alaska, among other places) and writing his books, in approximately the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Undoubtedly a shameful thing for a librarian to be admitting, but I also have to admit that I've never read any of his books. I simply knew they were considered classics in the realm of environmental literature, books one did not discard from the collection, even if no one had checked them out in a long time.

But good lord, the fellow stumbled onto Yosemite -- which he promptly fell in love with, and which soon became his life's obsession (something else I didn't know) -- way back in the 1850s. And I didn't know that it was because of him that the Sierra Club came into existence, for the express purpose of protecting Yosemite. I also had no idea that that organization went back as far as it does (1892). Just as I didn't know the Audubon Society was originally started by someone named George Bird Grinnell, who worked tirelessly in the late 1800s to preserve natural habitats and their wildlife. One of the most satisfying moments of Part II was when it described his publishing in the magazine Forest and Stream, of which he was editor, an article on the slaughter by poachers of buffalo in Yellow-stone National Park, which so outraged people that Congress in short order passed the National Park Protective Act, thereby saving the buffalo of the park, and animals throughout all the parks. Yes! The power of the press!

Indeed, again and again in this series we are learning about individuals -- many of whom I personally had never heard of -- whose passion and dedication were given over to protecting and preserving the natural wonders of this country, for the enjoyment of all of us. These men -- and early on they were all men -- are as much an in-spiration as the parks themselves. And certainly the many gorgeous views of the various parks is an inspiration to get out there and experience some wilderness.

It reminds me of the time I went camping with my Aunt Kittisue in Alaska. My lovable aunt's idea of camping was to put Pavarotti on the cassette player, pour a glass of wine and wait for the steaks to cook on the habachi. While she and her friend Mary were doing that, and enjoying a good gab fest, I made the short walk from our campsite out to the road. Straight ahead reared that awesome sight, Mt. McKinley, completely white though it was the end of May. It was ten o'clock at night but the sun was still shining, and all the birds were still singing (I wondered fleetingly if they dropped dead from exhaustion because they never knew when to go to bed). I stood there in the middle of that two-lane highway for a good ten minutes, and no car passed, there was no sound but birdsong. And I realized that there was virtually no touch of humankind for many miles in all directions; we were surrounded by true wilderness. And I was forcefully struck, for the first time in my life, by how valuable that fact was, the fact of wilderness, of land untrampled, undeveloped, uncommercialized. Just nature, doing its thing.

The National Parks, America's Best Idea, is reminding me of that moment, and that conviction.

The rail trail explorer strikes again

I decided to take advantage of another gorgeous day of sunshine and green leaves, and walk a stretch of the Rail Trail I hadn't walked before. This stretch runs from just past the little frame building housing Kennebec Jewelry and Repair...with its sign out front, "Gem panning here," which I do not get at all -- it's not like they have a stream tumbling down from the mother lode at their doorstep...north toward Hallowell. Across the street from the opening in the fence where you access the trail is the big, ugly frame building that houses the KV Health Club (KV stands for Kennebec Valley). Farmingdale has a surfeit of these buildings. They would look pre-fab if they weren't so big, although maybe they make big pre-fabricated buildings. They are incredibly functional looking: plain walls, roof, windows, door, the end. Aesthetics are for sissies.

But the trail. It's lovely. Actually much nicer than the stretch running south from Hallowell that I walked in the early spring (Note of April 19). Admittedly, then it was pre-leaf season, but even so there are many more large trees along the Farmingdale stretch, and they are often on both sides of the trail, and close at hand, which is not the case at the Hallowell end. Indeed, a couple of times I could hear myself thinking, "Lions and tigers and bears, oh no!"

The breeze in the trees made that water-like sound I love so much, though since the leaves are beginning to dry out, the sound wasn't so much soft as brittle, more like a small waterfall than a rushing river. Quite a few birch trees to be seen in amongst the maples, the oaks, their distinctive white bark marking them as special. In one case there were two growing close together, with one contorted somewhat like a stretched out S, the other standing perfectly straight. I could just hear the conversation over the years -- "Please, come away with me. Let's explore over this way." "I'm not going anywhere." "If you won't come with me, I'm going alone." "Suit yourself; I'm staying right here." "Ach! You know I can't live without you."

There were another two farther along, the trunks close together lower down, but then they began to grow apart. In adulthood their upper branches had suddenly reached out to each other, as they realized they needed each other after all.

Yes, I can make up a story about anything. In fact, when my siblings and I were kids I used to keep them and myself entertained on the long hauls between Texas and Indiana where we had moved after my mother married my stepfather, by telling them stories based on whatever they pointed at out the window. (old barn -- "Once upon a time a brother and sister lived in an old barn...")

At one point the rail trail made a right-angle turn and crossed the track. Big excitement. Of course, as I mentioned last spring, trains no longer travel along this track, so there was no danger involved in crossing the track. But why the change? As soon as I was over there I thought I knew: I was now directly above the river, and closer to it than I'd been anywhere else along the trail. It was too bad that the tide was out, so what lay below me were exposed mud flats, rather than flowing water. But the current was moving northward, which meant the tide was coming in. If I'd had a few hours to kill I could have stayed there, and watched the water reassert itself.

Another nice aspect of this stretch of the trail is the absence of traffic noise. It quickly disappeared, once I was on the trail, from a combination of the thick stands of trees on the road side, the gradual descent of the trail to a lower level than the road, with an embankment serving as a noise damper, and a widening distance between the road and the trail. A combination of factors that increased the peacefulness of the walk dramatically. Altogether a perfect way to spend an hour on a perfect day.

Nature, behaving strangely

Here it is the beginning of the third quarter of the month of September, in the state of Maine, and all the leaves are still green. They are tired and worn out, a dull green, as opposed to the perky, full-of-promise lime green of early spring, or the serenely lush forest green of mid-summer, but still, green. Oh, there's the occasional patch of red or orange here and there, but it's very occasional. When we have a breezy day there are leaves all over the place, but they are dried-out, brown leaves that seem to have fallen from the trees without going through the mandatory color change first. Even the big, gorgeously round tree I pass every day on my way to work, that normally starts churning out the colored leaves in the middle of August, is still determinedly green, though many of its leaves are curling at the edges and turning brown.

A word to the wise: don't come leaf-peeping for a few weeks.

Has it been too dry? Is it because we still haven't had a frost? We have been having absolutely gorgeous weather for the past month -- sunny days, highs usually in the upper 60s, low humidity -- after a perfectly miserable June, when it rained or was overcast for all but three days, and July, during which if it wasn't raining it was the hot, humid weather that makes it so much hotter than whatever the thermometer declares it is. I have been enjoying these so much more cheerful and comfortable days as much as everyone else. People come into the library saying "isn't it a beautiful day?" and of course I agree. But I'm thinking, why aren't the leaves changing? And I wonder why no one else seems to have noticed.

I just checked online, and at scifun.chem.wisc.edu, on the Chemical of the Week page, learned that low temperatures destroy chlorophyll, which of course makes leaves green, and if those low temps. stay above freezing, it enhances anthocyanin (the red pigment found in some leaves) production. So maybe it has been too warm -- even at night the temperature has been dropping only into the lower 50s/ upper 40s (I can hear my Texas relatives, still enduring daily highs in the 90s, yelping "Upper 40s!") which may not be cool enough.

The information on this Chemical of the Week page says one thing that really confuses me: "bright sunlight also breaks down chlorophyll." But in that case, why are leaves so green during the summer? Admittedly, at the beginning of this summer, here in Maine, we didn't have that much "bright sunlight," but other places have lots of sunshine during their summers, and they still have green leaves.

But then, chemistry has always left me in the dark. I realize it's life at the most basic level -- that it isn't just biology as destiny, but chemistry as destiny -- but that just means life at the most basic level leaves me in the dark.

And why aren't the leaves changing?

A window on nature

I was just looking through the folder where I kept notes for my newsletter, which I started sending out in March of 1979, and pretty much discontinued in 2005. Lots of odds and ends never made it into the newsletter. I've decided to trot out a few of the fairly recent ones, dating from when I was living in my cold, leaky but wonderful cabin-on-the-lake in East Winthrop, Maine. The lake was the Cobbosseecontee, shortened by everyone to Cobbossee. I was forever being treated to scenes that delighted me, driving along the road that led in from the two-lane highway to the unpaved road that in turn led to the camp where my cabin was located, driving along various back roads when I just felt like exploring the neighborhood, even just looking out the window of my cottage. To wit:

When I first moved to the cabin from the motel where I'd been staying I was arriving late in the evening, and it was quite windy. My headlights lit up masses of dry, late autumn leaves that were being swept across the road, up, over, around, turning the road into a tunnel of swirling leaves. And there was perfect, vigorous musical accompaniment on the radio -- Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. Made it seem like I was starting out on this exciting adventure.

One day in early spring I glanced out my window and saw a perky squirrel sitting upright on a branch, its tail a bushy question mark, looking just like all those cartoons. Then it took a flying leap to another tree and the air filled with dust, lit up by the sun. Dust? A few minutes later a car drove down the road to another of the cabins, and I saw that it was covered with a fine green film. The light went on in my head: the "dust" I had seen was tree pollen, being transferred by one of natures transport agencies.

Another sign of spring: two bugs copulating on the window pane. It looked like forcible rape to me -- she kept trying to scoot away, he kept pulling her along in the other direction. When I hit the pane they both froze, played dead ("Shhh. Somebody's seen us.")

One winter's day I drove into Winthrop proper. Flawlessly blue sky, bright sun, the ground and trees covered with recent snowfall, but the roads clear. Out on the lake in town (Maranacook -- another great Indian name) there were scattered ice-fishing huts, the occasional snow mobile speeding across the snow-covered surface. At the edge of the lake some folks had cleared a small area of snow, turning it into an ice-skating rink. All those people out there enjoying the day, despite the 24 degree temperature. But 24 degrees with sunshine and no wind feels good to northerners dressed for it. And all of this was accompanied by the beautiful, peaceful music, with just a touch of the melancholy to it, that was playing on my car radio. When the piece ended I learned it was Dvorak's 9th symphony. Perhaps he wrote it on just such a day. It went so perfectly with the day, the scene, that I almost cried.

Another day in winter I watched snow dust being wafted through the air from the snow-laden pine and hemlock trees around the cabin on a wind that was really nothing more than a breath. The earth breathed, and the trees sighed.

And this was my reaction when I got home late one night, and stood for a moment in the dark, listening to the silence that was interrupted by a waxing and waning wind:

"I love the sound of the wind coming through the trees toward you -- like rushing water -- and it sounds so strong you're surprised that the trees around you move so little when it arrives. Sound...the great deceiver."

Streams

When I was walking the rail trail in Hallowell the other day I crossed the most wonderful stream. A footbridge takes you over it, and I found myself pausing for a good five minutes, leaning on the wooden railing, mesmerized by what I was seeing and hearing.

The stream drops down in a zig-zag through a shallow, heavily wooded ravine. Every now and then it turns into a tiny, miniature waterfall, as it drops down slightly to the next level. And it makes a wonderful sound, the kind of steady, rushing-water sound that could lull you to sleep. There are large rocks and even out-and-out boulders, both in the stream and lying about on the sloping land to either side. Indeed, there is a fat wall of obviously finished granite blocks, marching to the edge of the stream on one side, then con-tinuing a very short way on the other. I was thinking this must be the remains of an old bridge, but conferring with Hallowell's historian, who very conven-iently is one of my little library's Board members, I learned that it's actually the remains of a dam.

Sam also informed me that this is Vaughan Stream, once part of the Vaughan estate, the Vaughans being one of the oldest and wealthiest Hallowell families. But in the 1830s, with the demise of the Second Bank of the United States, the Vaughans lost a good deal of their investments, and were forced to sell much of the land along the stream. A number of businesses were built along it, including a sandpaper plant just above the dam. No doubt the stream is much more pleasant now, shaded by the tall trees on its banks, than in its industrial heyday.

Streams are to be found everywhere in this area. And by this area I mean not only the Augusta area, but the state of Maine – for that matter, the region of New England. Water, water, everywhere. I was ill a few weeks ago, and when I finally began feeling somewhat better I decided a short walk through my neighborhood would get my sluggish blood flowing. I passed numerous narrow wooded areas through which water was inevitably flowing. I would walk to the side of the road and peer down at where a narrow trickle of water was wending its way over, under and around mossy rocks, fallen branches, small granite boulders, past banks pale brown with old autumn leaves. The water would be coming from beneath the road on which I stood, so then I would walk to the other side of the road to see whence it came. Sometimes there it was, twisting and turning its way to the pipe under the road that would enable it to continue its quietly gurgling trip down to the Kennebec River. They'd obviously interrupted the stream by bringing in rocks and earth, piling it up, with a pipe running through for the stream, then paving the top.

But sometimes the steam wasn't to be seen on the other side, just somebody's yard. So where was that water coming from? Or as in the case of the creek directly across the street from my house, that wends through a little woods beside the handsome white-with-black-shutters house on the corner, where does it go? It certainly doesn't continue on the other side of the road, because there's my house, my yard. The secret life of water...

So here we are, surrounded by water, taking it for granted, not even noticing that it is with us in all sorts of unexpected nooks and crannies, often not knowing where it's coming from or where it's going. And in many parts of the world – in many parts of this country – water is a rare commodity. If there is a stream, even a river, it may be dry during the dry season. In other parts of the world, what water there is may be badly polluted (we've been working hard in this country for the past thirty years to make that less the case here). And those in the know tell us that water people can safely use for drinking, cooking and bathing is going to become increasingly rare, thanks to both global warming and the aforementioned pollution.

I was thinking what a shame we couldn't bottle some of the trickles and creeks and streams with which New England abounds, send the water where it's needed. On the other hand...would I want to drink that stuff?