Widening the stream

This is your plot?

Yes, Meanie...it's part of about 4 acres that I'm trying to keep. This little stream runs into a larger one at the bottom of our lot. to the right you can see the stones I've been piling up...trying to make a retaining wall...flowerbeds and walkways... it's slow going because I only have one speed! lol...

Respect for taking it on!

Good to see a nice flow of water down your stream Lori. Is this a recent picture?

If this was in my garden Lori you'd be able to white-water raft down it with all the rain I'm getting! Looks like hard work but worth it in the end. (Good for your six-pack!).

Are you widening it to make it into a feature or to drain your land Lori ? it looks to be hard work , it looks as if there is a steep drop at the end like a waterfall !

Thanks Meanie...It might take years but I'm trying.
Yes, Dorjac, we finally have had some rain...not enough though. The stream has been running for two weeks and the pigs have been enjoying the wallow upstream because the muck I'm shoveling sure smells like them! :-(
LOL..Muddy...can't find my six pack for the insulation! Sorry to hear about the excess..we are suffering from the opposite...there's enough water for the stream to run but the trees need more. will be an early autumn this year some of the maples are turning already.
Hi Amy... I am widening it for both reasons...I want to grade the banks back so that I can plant along it and to an extent, redirect the highwater in spring. Have broken the drop into 12-15 ft. runs.. a drop of about 8-10 inches at each level. Want to line the creek with the gravel size stones that I've removed from the beds but the silt and "stuff" from the piggies keeps messing things up.

My close cousin from 'up north' had an expletive that's not used much in southern England Lori, she used to say ,when she was still with us. 'That would piggin well happen' or similar words. I rather like pigs. The little ones are funny. Older ones rather clever and they do love a good wallow, especially in hot weather. The mum pigs put up with those huge crowds of piglets hanging on their teats and walking over them. Dashing about and squabbling. When you get some water in your stream: they would 'piggin well' wallow and send down a load of poo and goo to set back your project.

I don't know where you get all your energy from Lori ! it sounds as though you are doing it very much on the same lines as our canals here where they go down in steps to allow the boats to go down hill except they obviously have a drop of more than 8-10 " at each level to take the canal boat and then they have to wait at each step to allow the locks to fill with water etc. I like piggies to they are funny and are much more intelligent than people give them credit for , on some farms they have been giving them games to play they very quickly learnt how to play them to ! Good luck with the project , I have a feeling you are going to need it :o))

Wow! That's a lot of work!

I wanted it all done in one or two seasons when I first came here, D1....what an optimist, aye, Amy and Dorjac? I'm pecking away at so many different "projects" that I sometimes feel like chucking it all...as I don't feel I have made enough progress. Hub gives me a pep talk ...and I realize that I have plenty of time if I just pace myself and keep my eye on the prize...

I'm glad your Hubby is keeping an eye on you Lori and has your best interests at heart .. take each day as it comes and enjoy that day without trying to over do it , if you didn't do a thing you would still have that wonderful view to sit down and enjoy ! x

Aww thanks Amy... yes T. does an excellent job of keeping my feet on the ground and my plans out of the realm of fantasy! This place is my little heaven and I feel a little less than charitable to the piggies (and their owners) because they eat the roots of the ferns and dig up the forest floor disturbing and eating the roots of the trilliums...They do not do me well! If they were properly penned and controlled I would have no worries at all...and like you and Dorjac I find them cute and entertaining...just wish they weren't ripping up my land!

Sorry Lori , I thought the Piggies were yours ! well that's not at all funny if they are rooting over your land, the owners should be ashamed of themselves for allowing them to destroy your area and plants , I think you should kidnap them and have some pork chops LOL .

Definitely roast one on a spit Lori......roast little piggie is delicious with a bit of apple chutney or sauce....yum yum. There's always something to spoil idylls. Just been reading a Kindle book about rebuilding a ruin on a Greek island. An ancient chicken running about with no head.....one for the pot. Bringing a lamb to slaughter for the celebration of completion of project. An ancient, failing olive tree blown up for the firewood. The author had bought the field hoping to rescue the tree from its equally ancient owner.....no such luck. Ancient male Greek islanders are ever pragmatic. Honed in scarcity. They will even boil a chickens cluck for luck. Happy ending when the children came running one day to say the battered olive was putting up shoots after rain...hurray. Perhaps the pigs are sreading trillium seeds? The book is called ' It's all Greek to me' DOH!!!

Hmmm... pignapping...that is a thought with great possibilities! LOL...seriously though, I couldn't put anything to death, even if I was starving. I'm a wimp. If I had chickens they'd be retired to a spa when they stopped laying! (No I don't mean a cauldron spa, either.)
Have long wanted to check out Santorini, but aside of the Parthenon, I don't think there's much in Greece proper that I'd go out of my way to see. It's for sure, there are those who would heartily disagree!
summers are a breeze, here...it's the winters that present a challenge to survival!
Have given some thought to getting a kindle..but I am such a luddite. I like to turn the pages...Will look up "It's all Greek.." Dorjac. Sounds very entertaining. Good reading this winter.
It's an interesting theory that the pigs may be spreading seed...but trillium roots run underground and even if they're not eaten they still require 7 years to put up leaves and a blossom. Who knows how the rooting pigs affect that?

That book does sound interesting Dorjac , I'm afraid my book pile gets ever higher , I'm like you Lori I love to hold a book but I am thinking a Kindle might be a good idea as we have a very good bus service going into the city which we have started to use more often leaving the car at home ,it would be an idea to have a kindle tucked into your handbag to while away the bus journeys only problem is I might forget to get off and would be going round in circles intent on finishing a chapter ......

LOL...you just download the books onto your Kindle and away you go! Would be great if the libraries got onto that...in fact I think they have. Your download is only good for two weeks or three...and then you have to renew! How the world has changed. Can remember typing pages of code, so that our oldest (now in his thirties) could play "Space Taxi" on our Commode 64! the technologies of today were the sci-fi of a decade ago. Imagine what our phones do today...compared to the old black rotary dialed things common to my childhood. Just amazing. I'm still going to the library though.

Trouble is Lori our local library refurb took ages. I broke my ankle blah blah, and a Kindle seemed like a brill idea for birthday and Christmas prezzies rolled in one, from OH off Amazon. So I still buy books of the kind that are no good on Kindle.....like animal artists books, and colour pencil instruction books. Romford is good for those shops that open in empty shops. One of them sells, dirt cheap, beautiful books. Romford is the tag end of the East End of London, so not posh enough for Laura Ashley or Army and Navy or even Scottish Woollen Mill. You need a 3G Kindle to download directly avoiding the computer, but it registers on OH computer. 'See you bought another book'.....ho hum. The latest techy gizmos are a whiz, and I'm glad I'm not afraid of them. We started off with an Amstrad and took it back as we didn't understand it.

Back to telephones ! I can still remember our first No. at my fathers house it was no.326 that was the sum total of all the phones in the area ,it would run into thousands now .. later on I use to collect the old black ones for the pre-school children to play with at a play school I started after our eldest was born when playschools hadn't been thought of , they loved pretending to be grown ups talking :o)

Crank, crank...hello Central?...give me #326, please. ...Yes I'll hold.
then if you were talking "privately" you had to be sure that the 'operator' had closed the key...or she could hear everything you said. We had 'party' lines...and each party on the line had a different ring...ours was one long and two short! lol.... and if you needed the phone and they were talking it could get a little heated! and if you had a nosey neighbour you could plant the worst rumours about them and listen for the click...when they hung up in disgust! lol....
Why does it always seem that the person whose job it is to explain and educate a customer about their cell phone...is almost always still in diapers...and convinced that everyone knows all the acronyms they spout...and understand their techno-shorthand as well as they do...I'm sure they absorb it by telepathy while in their cribs!! I had to learn what I know by trial and error and asking my children.
I don't fear the devices as much as I do the possibility of doing something potentially harmful, like setting off a bomb with it...or making a serious mistake and receiving a bill at the end of the month for 3 months salary worth of calls! That's why I say I'm a Luddite...it is easier to just give up and accept the egg on my face. I gave my son my blackberry because we have no service here, but I have to admit, also because it was taking me forever to figure it out. ...and txtg shrthnd was a pzzl...rotflol....
and btw...on the comment I made above about the "Space Taxi" game for our son....I called it a Commode...64....lol...it should have been Commodore 64... Freudian slip, I guess.

That is true about phones......for years they stayed the same. Big clunky exchanges. Crossed lines. Pushing button B to get your money back. The black dial phone threatening me with its ring at 11.30pm. 'I think I'm in labour'. Or at 3.30am 'Oh were you asleep?' Or a surprisingly calm man's voice. 'The baby is born and crying well. What do I do next?' On a pay phone!!!! 'Get the heck back home, wrap it up. Cuddle her and admire your handiwork, I'll be with you soonest'. Now we have smarty pants smart phones....so smart they outsmart themselves. I have 'low end one' but still use my silver stoneage clam. It only stores 6 texts then says 'I'm full up'. I used to put 2 cushions over the phone when off call. How things have changed in the last 15 years.

Good grief! a pay phone? it is frightening sometimes when you realize that Big Brother is here, now! Satellite phones...GPS...and we thought there was no privacy on a party line!

In this country there are watchful cameras everywhere. They take the place of nosey people in a small village. My neighbour said fairly recently. You've been out 5 times this week!! Oh thanks for telling me. Till tickets have date and time on them. An ATM records date and time. A long time Irish friend said the reason she left Ireland in the fifties. 'Clerical rule' and nosiness into your affairs in a small town. Can't win, as that villagey feel goes out of most parts of society, digitamania takes over.

all too true, Dorjac. I thought that Google earth was a great idea until I realized that there were pictures of my street...my house...that (although it was taken almost three years ago) if my address (in town) was put in as a search, anyone could walk down my street and look right in my front windows!! All anyone needs it seems is your address and with GPS they can drive right to your door! but even more bothersome is advertiser spotting...if I wrote that I had bunions on this page..there would be ads popping up for special shoes!
It is impossible to break that tether...I'm as habituated to email and facebook and all the other instant communication tools as the next person. Just have to hope that it never goes completely awry...what chaos there would be!

One time last winter when recovering from the broken ankle (snow lying for days). I got the address book and gazed from above on most of properties of people in groups we belong to, but had not visited them at their house. Then at street level to see the frontage. I was bored....but not a burglar or thief sussing out the layout. All of these techy things, that have pleased us so much, have hidden downsides to them. I suppose we prefere not to dwell on that too much, because of the enjoyment that the internet brings to our lives.

Also, very true. I don't watch television anymore...we have satellite but it's for the internet. I spend most of my free time on GoY...or facebook. I like to play the games and can keep better track of friends and relatives at a distance. It is a joy. so perhaps I should be counting my blessings not the threats! lol. Haven't had much time recently..and any I do spend I feel guilty for...I should be out there taking advantage of the good weather.
As I mentioned ...the stream has totally dried up and some of my perennials are looking very needy... I can do the digging on the stream with more ease than if the soil is wet ..so that's a plus, but the poor plants are choking.

you are doing soo well Lori, and theres no rush a garden is NEVER finished...

and as for technology i just love the internet...as u say GOY and facebook keep me in touch with friends and family and my understanding of the world is much greater since i have met people like u and other GOYers from around the world. we are having a spell of good weather this week which makes a great change and has given me chance to catch up with everything in the garden and nursery. long may it last...x

Bless you, Sandra... and thank you. Saw an item on Fb that the British Isles is having the wettest summer in a century! good to hear it's changed to nice weather in Wales.... because it seems when you have it dry, we have it wet...and the reverse. So if you're dry...we'll get some much needed rain! Please let it be so. ;-)

just do the welsh rain dance....all u need to do is get the BBQ out start dancing around it and hey presto...it rains...lol

That is a good one, Sandra! ;-)