Ready for Spring

The ground was so wet that you could hear the grass crawling this morning. Tiny rivers ran through the mud, taking with it more of our land. Not one inch of our property is flat, due in part to the spring in the front which starts a stream that is fed from more streams along the way. Each stream digs deeper into the soil, carving a waterbed and destroying the trees in the wooded section.

Since we've begun living here, three new streams have developed. Our local conservation agent at the Extension Office says that there is nothing to be done without spending millions we don't have. The land around us was once wooded and was stripped to be farmed. That changed the main creek that winds through the back of our property. Lately, however, I've noticed a bigger change in the creek. I am certain that this is due to the recent development of subdivisions nearby.

Our house sits up on a hill, overlooking the bowl-shaped front yard with the spring. After a field trip to Mammoth Caves, we learned that springs and sink holes often mean caves. Because we have a sink hole in the back, and because we know our house settled some since construction in the 70's, I envision sometimes our house sinking to the roofline into a hidden cave below.

We moved to the rural area, to an existing house that we remodeled, to avoid the crowded subdivisions. It seems they followed us, and there isn't anything we can do about it.