My new favorite spot in our woods

When we were looking for property to buy here in Arkansas (back in 2005), we wanted a piece of property that fit the following criteria:
- More than 10 acres but less than 100
- Mostly wooded
- Off any main road, on a gravel road if possible
- Must have a house and a workshop
- Running water (year round would be best)

When we found the listing for this property, it sounded like exactly what we wanted.  It's 42 acres, has a house and a barn/work shop, the driveway is 1/2 mile long and gravel off the main highway, the buildings can't be seen from the highway, and there's about 5 acres cleared with the rest wooded.

Even better, it's surrounded by hunting property on 3 sides.  This means there's over 1100 acres of woods around us.  Across the Spring River is a wildlife management area, meaning our little "woods" is part of a very large forest.  Wonderful!

The one thing we didn't have was running water.  Damn.

In the fall of 2006 I decided to try and follow the old barbed wire fence and see where exactly our property lines were.  As I walked down into the hollow... down and down and down, I discovered that it was a long damn way down there... further than a half mile!  And at the bottom was a stream.  That was good news.  But I didn't think any part of the stream was on OUR property.

For those who've never leaved in hilly country, measuring distance can be a bit tricky.  You see, 40 acres is part of a "square".  Usually a square is 160 acres.  That equals 1 square mile.  So 40 acres would be 1/4 mile square.  When the original survey of an area was done and it was mapped, property was divided by square mile.  As measured on the map.  But, in hilly country where the actual land undulates, the actual walking distance could be much more than that.  In reality you're "square" 40 acres could be 1/2 mile walking distance with all the dips and rises.  Because the surface of the earth isn't flat, like the distance on the map.

As I was walking down into the hollow (or Haller as they say here), it was a damn lot further than 1/4 mile!

So, we talked about that off and on.  Worked on the house.  Cleaned up around the area that's cleared.  Time passed.  And in 2010, we decided to actually have the property surveyed.  That way we'd know EXACTLY where our property was and wasn't.

Once the surveyors were done, we walked the new clearly marked boundary and placed "posting tape" so our property would be "posted".  Meaning it's not open for hunting without our permission.  "Posting" your property indicated to the public that this piece of property is privately owned and that coming on the property without permission could result in your arrest.  Here in the country, most property is posted.  The owner is legally responsible for all activity on their property.  Posting your property helps you control this activity.  If someone is on your property without your consent, that's criminal activity!  Posting your property helps keep you as the property owner safe, within the law.  Because you know who is on your property when.  Trespassing is serious business!

Anyway... as we were walking the boundary we found that stream.  And part of it IS on our property.  Excellent!  But it appeared to be dry part of the year.

Last fall I decided to investigate the stream further.  I started at our northwest property marker and followed the northern line until I came on the creek.  Then I followed the creek until it dried up.  Damn.  If went underground not far from the northern line.

Back in February, I decided to go back down there and look around again.  And the water was flowing  much further up stream than it had been.  It seems I might have been looking at it during the height of the drought last year.  That would explain why it went dry.  Or maybe it's just a seasonal stream.  Meaning it flows during part of the year when we have plenty of rain, and dries up during the long hot summer.

A few weeks ago, Joshua and I walked down there again.  And we followed the creek until we found the source.  It's obvious from looking at the land around the source that this creek varies in it's flow a great deal.  The stream bed extends much further up hill.  And it's tumbled nature indicated that the flow can be rather brisk at times.  It's very beautiful.  Rough and tumbled.  Jumbled.  Pools and little water falls, and flowing over large flat bedrock.

This really struck me.  It's just lovely!  I want to spend more time around the stream/creek.  I want to play in the water.  I want to enhance the pools, make them deeper.  Clean up the source and make it as beautiful as possible.

So, yesterday I went back down to the creek.  I took the brush cutters with me.  The manual kind.  I was going down by myself, so I didn't want to take any power tools that I could hurt myself with.  Just me, my camera and the brush cutters and a water bottle.  I had a great time!

Here's some of the pictures I took of our spring.  That's the correct term for this flow, a spring.  It comes up straight out of the ground.  That makes it a spring.  The past few times I was down there, the water flowed over the entire streambed.  Today it didn't.  There was a section that went UNDER the large pieces of bedrock.  This was the part we'd found dry in the past and assumed it was a dry streambed.  Now I'm sure it's NOT.

I'll keep walking down to the spring once a week and check on the flow rate.  That way I will know when it stops flowing for the summer and when it starts again.

I even found a little mud turtle yesterday in one of the pools.  If a little turtle lives there, the water must be fairly constant.

The source of the spring

A little mud turtle in the first pool

Another pool a bit further down stream

A section of the tumbled stream bed

A large section of bedrock where another little stream enters

A particularly beautiful section of the rocks beside the spring

The dry section where the spring runs under the rocks and emerges again a few feet away

When I was a child in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania, one of my favorite activities was playing in the "creek" in the woods.  I loved spending hours there.  Playing with the turtles, crayfish, and minnows.  Listening to the birds.  Building a rock fort.

When our friend Michelle came to visit for a few days, I took her down to the spring.  We spent most of the day there.  Digging out one of the pools and stacking up rocks to make it deeper.  Talking and not talking, just enjoying the woods and the birds together.  It was wonderful.  I really enjoyed it.

This summer, I hope to spend some time with Ariel down here by the water.  Maybe we can do some clearing up and build a wickiup.  Have a picnic.  Play in the water.  That thought brings a smile to my face.