MOVE OVER, EVIAN

As ever younger readers of these slapdash chronicles may remember, I have posted a few items about going up to clean the mountain forest stream from which we get our water via a system of tanks and pipes and gravity, and which requires outdoor maintenance because the stream, being alive, is naturally fidgety with gravity, topography, meteorology etc. Streams can get oppressively scientific; plus, like anyone else this one gets seasonally feisty and thrashes around in its bed on occasion, moving big rocks around; washes down tree branches and leaves, so the collector gizmo has to be checked and cleared weekly by residents taking turns, in addition to regular overall maintenance.

And like any system, this one has been showing its age. Mainly built about 50 years ago, it has been tweakily updated ever since but isn't going to be economically viable for much longer, and will sooner more than later have to be replaced in toto for quite a sum, so the committee decided to investigate the possibility of drilling a well at less cost.

We called in a geologist specializing in mountain aquifers, who explored and assessed the heights above us at the true foot of the mountain; there he selected a likely spot for drilling. We then contracted with a local well-drilling company to test-drill down to 60-70 meters, which we figured should be sufficient to reach water and our budget. They drilled that deep, but no water.

The subcommittee then gave them permission to double that depth, which was about as far as there could be water that we were willing to pay to reach. So they drilled down to 140 meters and struck water, which then had to be tested. The water testing lab said that this was the highest quality well water they had seen on this side of the Lake; they recommended that we bottle and sell it.

I can see it all now: Pure Land Mountain Spring Water ("It's Sacred!"), "Straight from the Gates of Nirvana!" "Holier than Evian!" Nah. Think I’ll just chill some, make some tea... In any case, water more sacred than Perrier will spring from our taps in April.

No more cleaning the stream, though; I’ll miss that, going up there mornings in all seasons, following the stream edge up through the forest, to do some work on behalf of my neighbors...

I suppose I could always lend a hand at Pure Land Mountain Water Enterprises...

PRICING THE OUTDOORS

After days of heavy rainy-season rain, except for when I was in the office (yesterday heavy and continuous rain through which I gazed at my stacks of logs to be split), here I am on another sunny day in the office, recalling how the lake looked this morning not long after I awoke at around dawn into the thick silence that falls like a sky-sized blanket when a monsoon rain abruptly stops-- and way up there on the mountain the residual mist makes the atmosphere visible, imparting new depths as it dissipates with the rising light...

I stood at the big glass doors that front the living room and sipped my tea while watching the sky clear and the lake turn blue, starting with a ragged hole of golden sunlight opening over the middle of the cloud-gray water, the hole widening as the clouds broke up, into crumbly tufts by the time I was freewheeling downhill through the scattering mist to catch the train that took me to what by the time I arrived was a warm sunny city.

That morning scene recalled to me this snippet from an article by Barbara Ehrenreich:

"I need to see vast expanses of water, 360 degree horizons, and mountains piercing the sky -- at least for a week or two of the year. According to evolutionary psychologist Nancy Etcoff, we all do, and the need is hard-wired into us. 'People like to be on a hill, where they can see a landscape. And they like somewhere to go where they can not be seen themselves,' told Harvard Magazine earlier this year. 'That's a place desirable to a predator who wants to avoid becoming prey.' We also like to be able to see water (for drinking), low-canopy trees (for shade), and animals (whose presence signals that the place is habitable.)" The Rich Have Priced the Outdoors out of Everyone Else's Hands [Except where I live. RB]

I do like a broad expanse of landscape, especially above water, though it's been a long time since I felt like either predator or prey. As to "animals whose presence" etc., the deer (that I would have sworn had all moved way upmountain by now) just ate all my chard and all the leaves off my bean plants, acknowledging in their deery way my small efforts at making the place more habitable.

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