The Thursday Ramble: Along the Waterfront

The western property line of the farm I grew up was the east water line of Gravel Creek. We learned this after my Grandmother sold the front half of the farm to my father, he owned it for a few short years, and the neighboring farmer stopped on day and made him an offer he couldn't refuse to buy the land. He agreed to let my parents use the house, the pond, the farm buildings for as long as they wanted - they were a few years away from retirement. After the ownership had transferred, the farmer had the land re-surveyed and set the property line along the edge of a field, leaving the entire creek on the adjoining property - his property. Why, the creek had moved over the 200 years since the original survey, leaving my father's farm with about 10 acres of what had originally been a part of the adjoining farm. A gain of land by the movement of a water course is accretion, a loss is disacreation. 

In addition the creek along one side of the farm, there was a five acre spring fed man-made pond, and a couple of acres of wetlands that had enough water in it to have fish in it. Hence I grew up around a lot of water. Minnesota may known as the land of 10,000 lakes, but Michigan is not far behind with thousands of lakes carved out by the glaciers of the last ice age. 

Less than a month after I moved to the DC area area, I stepped outside one morning and realized I could smell the nearby water. Not in a foul way, but in a pleasant there is a lot of water here way. I realized then, that Lexington Kentucky did not have that smell. There are a few shallow creeks that pass through Lexington, but no major rivers and certainly no lakes. Kentucky has some massive reservoirs, dammed up rivers, but no natural lakes.  And we didn't live near any of them. 

I do enjoy getting out along the water here.  We are close enough to smell the water, and the walks along the waterfront never fail to bring calm to me.  The building we live in is also about 150 feet higher than the river level, living on top of a hill I don't worry about flooding. In fact with global warming and rising sea levels, we could end up with waterfront property in 100 years.