Life on the Edge

Last Friday's journal entry focused on a few drops of water coming into the house. Well, maybe more than a few; a flood. What I failed to mention, though, was that while I was dealing with this inconvenience, the big effort of the day was in overseeing the completion of the last dam to be constructed at Windgrove in the past two weeks. All up, two new dams were built with the third one on Friday simply an enlargement of an existing upper reservoir for the Peace Garden pond. Now, just below the Peace Garden, a small reflecting pond has been installed. Presently, it looks a bit raw and maybe (to some people) even unnecessary, but for the past four years the thought of putting in another water element kept entering my imagination. And, who am I to question the muse? Since the 38 ton excavator, complete with a bucket capable of holding three cubic metres of dirt, was already on the land building the Gully Dam, now seemed the time to direct its big scoop this way. In a few months, after the top soil has been spread, new grass has sprouted and the pond filled to overflowing and reflecting a pink sunset, I'll take a photo and put it up on the blog.

Built between the she-oak hill on one side and the hill of the large keyhole circle on the other side, the biggest of the dams, the Gully Dam (above photo), is purely practical in that it will allow for a good sized garden and small orchard as well as instantaneous bush fire protection through a gravity fed system of sprinklers on the roof and hoses on the ground. Because both the hills had exposed dolerite outcrops dropping down their sides going into the gully, there was every chance that all we would hit when digging started was more rock or gravel (meaning no dam). But.... we hit a good seam of clay and were able to create a waterproof dam 100 feet (30 meters) long,16 feet (5 meters) at its deepest point and 75 feet (22 meters) wide along the Gully Dam's dam wall. Not only was it a joy to know that Windgrove's future water needs would be met, it was also a joy to see how Andrew, the operator of this massive, earth moving machine, could handle it with such skilful sensitivity and grace. There is still a lot of work to be done in the digging of a quarter mile long trench and the laying of two sets of pipes (fire/garden water and drinking water) as well as all the junctures and multiple fittings, but the really big work has been accomplished and for this I am happy.