From the Archives #1: The Show and Tell of the Stream at the Previous House.
We go back to the year 2007--simpler times before the I-Phone invasion.
The last house I lived in (at the time of this taping) had a small stream running through the edge of the back yard that would flow for a few months during the rainy season in the spring and early summer, then occasionally throughout the rest of the summer when there was adequate rain. It flowed into a larger brook which ran constantly and contained a total of 4 culverts that passed under the road within walking distance of the house.
For as long as I can remember, I have always taken an interest in the flow and containment water, be it a pond, culvert, river, etc. During a heavy rain storm I could often be found peeping out the windows checking the flow of the gutter downspouts. After a storm I would always go outside and clear any clogs from the stream and watch the raised current rush through the larger culverts of the brook the stream emptied into.
I spent countless hours in the woods behind this stream. I constructed several variations of a patio and walkway surrounding this stream over the years. The last iteration documented in this video was quite elaborate considering I was only in middle school at the time of the construction and had limited access to the correct tools. It was also comprised almost exclusively of scrap pieces found in the woods that had probably been sitting for decades. I made many phone calls on my Uniden XCA-650 cordless phone at that patio, and even watched the occasional TV program on an old Sony Watchman TV set.
Back behind the patio, there was maybe a few hundred feet of woods, then the larger brook. With a good heavy rain, several parts of this area would go under a few inches of water. I had cleared several paths through this area, after the water resided they would turn into great mud biking trails.
At 27:37 in the video, a light colored ring on the ground can be see towards the top of the screen. This is a significant feature I forgot about during the video. My grandfather always collected the grass when he cut it and would dump it deep back in his woods in a similar circular pattern. Being the most influential person in my life, when I started cutting the grass, I naturally wanted to the same thing. At the time, I mowed the lawn with a manual reel mower with a collector attached. I compiled all the grass into a wheel barrow and would dump it out in the back, just as I saw him doing.
I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to that small stream in the back yard, but the larger brook with the 4 culverts passes under a public road. I have driven by it in recent times, and while it looks nothing like I remember it, I still would like to visit it some time and capture it on video.