I was supposed to have a meeting this morning --- the good lord willin' an' the creek don't rise.  But the creek did rise and the doppler radar called for much more rain to come, so I called to say I was afraid to leave home for fear of getting flooded out.

While chatting to the folks I was supposed to meet with, I learned that the creek which folks talk about rising was originally meant to refer to the Creek Indians.  Which would make the phrase grammatically correct after all --- I always thought the "don't" in the sentence was just Appalachianese.

Anyhow, Lucy and I wandered down to the uncapitalized creek to perform a stick test on its depth.  Someday I want to install a long stick with graduated markings in the creek so I'll know the actual depth of the creek water, but for now I stick to a more quick and dirty stick test.  I throw the stick across the creek and see how well Lucy does as she bounds after it.  Today, Lucy showed me up for a wimp --- she could walk almost all the way across.  Still, I'm always glad to be flooded in, letting nature win the battle for once.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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