Walking Water

Reader Contribution by Bethann Weick
article image

Our water buckets are white. One, unlabeled, is perhaps an old restaurant bucket; the second bears the logo of a sheetrock compound. In their current use, however, they are clean, well washed, and well cared for. We may not have running water, but these buckets are our source of “walking water.”

With a bucket in each hand, I walk down to the river.  Our path is the gentlest it can be considering the slope of the land.  A few hundred yards in length, it descends the ravine over seeps and downed trees, past viburnum and under the cover of scraggly pines.  The sound of the river – easily heard inside the cabin much of the year – is becoming softer with the touch of winter.  In the spring, the water is often raging with the melt of ice and snow, and the influx of spring rains.  Come the summer, hot, dry days can quickly leave the river much lower and quieter, exposing otherwise unknown rocks and features.  By autumn, it rises again, the extent to which is dependent on the weather.  As winter descends, it begins to ice over.  Such is the condition it’s in now.  Snow and slush blur the distinction between bank and river, dull the cacophony of rushing water, and easily disguise the quality of the ice beneath.  Prudence is essential.

At some point each winter, the watering hole becomes inaccessible.  It is necessary, then, to carry along a hatchet as well.  It tests the ice and carves a hole in which each bucket can be dipped.  Maintenance can be daily if the winter temperatures don’t moderate.  Regardless, care must occupy the forefront of our minds: one mis-step and the situation quickly turns dire. 

Once the buckets are filled (and not to the tip-top, so as to avoid the cold effects of sloshed water freezing on my clothes), I head back up the hill.  If I wasn’t warm to start, I certainly am by the time I return to the cabin. 

Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368