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fresh flowing clean floodwater
Thursday, February 12 2009
Rain fell powerfully at some point during the night but by dawn the clouds had cleared and it had the makings for a glorious sunny day, complete with a measure of residual heat from the welcome air mass that had ventured up from the tropics yesterday.
I knew that the meltwater and rain had joined forces to raise the water table into the greenhouse, but I wasn't sure what I'd see when I went down there. The last time it had flooded, the greenhouse's bedrock was still partially-buried beneath a cubic yard of clay, and that clay loved nothing more than to turn into a cubic yard of sticky goop. I had to go see what it looked like this morning.
Without the clay, the floodwater passing through the greenhouse had a sparkling sterile quality that suggested either a Japanese fish garden or some sort of mesmerizing industrial process. Much of the shale bedrock had been rinsed clean, leaving it dark grey marbled with reds and whites. This made it a better match for the surface treatments I'd applied to the masonry walls and pulled the interior together into a singular cohesive æsthetic. The water, though a nuisance for actually doing anything in the greenhouse, seemed to make perfect sense there and I found myself wishing it could somehow be flooded like this all the time. I'd find a way to cope: boardwalks, lily pads, frogs, even carp. It would be awesome.
Alas, though, the water will soon recede, leaving the interior dry for another couple of months until the arrival of the floods of springtime. At least, though, I could take advantage of the temporary abundance of water to scrub the bedrock floor clean of all its trace smudges of clay. Later I can worry about installing interior drainage, laying down gravel, and setting bluestone pavers to provide a dry, walkable surface no matter the height of the water table. I'll be sure, though, to leave a hatch in the floor providing a view into its bedrock-bottomed depths, allowing me access to the unexpected delight of fresh flowing clean floodwater.
Later this evening as the last trace of the tropical air was chased away by cantankerous Old Man Winter, powerful winds blew through the area. I found myself wondering again about that suspect tree just north of the house, even though the worst of the winds were blowing from the west-south-west.
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