Going With the Flow

Well, I finally got to visit the grandkid on Saturday. His folks have bought a new house (too far from us, but good for them I reckon) and they are busy making it into a home.

"Saturday morning was come,

and all the summer world was bright and fresh,

and brimming with life.

There was a song in every heart;

and if the heart was young, the music issued at the lips.

There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step."- Mark Twain

They are in an area that is new and unfamiliar to me. It is a suburban area, close enough to the city for them, but with maybe an acre out back bordering on some woods. They are up a fairly steep hill, at the head of a ravine leading down to a decent sized fishing creek. Probably the fishing and the woods were the main draw at least for the "men of the house," though mom probably likes fishing too.

They bought it from the estate of a fellow who must have been interesting. There are a lot of little things that he put thought into as he built them, things that are simultaneously simple and complex. For instance, a large fireplace in the basement was built with what appears to be air passages leading around inside it's mass that would passively heat both of the upstairs floors, even after the fire would burn low. These are the sorts of things I think about, and admire, though in my world I don't always get the opportunity to get out of my "design stage."

Out back, behind a garage at the rear of their property, there is a large well built, though neglected, cistern being filled from the roof and from the small stream headed down the ravine toward the fishing creek. We spent a part of the day stringing up a gravity fed water line down to the large and well built and well fenced garden.

I took a break to sweat profusely while watching the almost two year old learn to shovel dirt into a bucket. I reflected that he will grow up taking this garden and it's precious water line for granted.

I wonder if my own gardens and gravity fed water lines and fences, though still a work in progress, will be used and appreciated by later generations. I have always been amazed at the engineering found in old barns or farms, of feed bins and hay racks that were easily fill-able from above, of springhouses that served both as water supply and refrigeration. How many of these things were the result of genius engineering and how many the result of trying every other possibility until finding the one that actually worked?

"When you put your hand in a flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come."

~ Leonardo da Vinci

I try to put in the thought, but often I fall into the latter camp of building and rebuilding looking for an exquisite efficiency. I only hope the things I do remain long enough to be useful to someone more than just myself. Whether my offspring and descendants (the hope of many of us) or of an unknown stranger who becomes connected through my work though he knows me not. I pray the fruit from trees I plant are still enjoyed after I am gone. Although I am in no hurry to go.

I still have too much work to do.

Thanks for Listening,

Dave