28>Feel Flows

I went down the old path to where I've scraped open a scoop in the earth to hold a seepage of spring water there. It's great. I only took a litre flask to fill, but could  have filled four.
It's sweet water, and makes me feel held by the land again.

My spring going dry made me feel very insecure.
It's interesting that the new source is on the old path that cuts down to the far corner, on the land's spine.
So I will be walking that way more often.

The other paths are getting crowded out by high bracken. I scythed a patch last week, and it's getting very wiry. Tough leathery stems.
After supper I intended to walk up to see my mother spring, but it had been raining so the bracken would have been  soaking.
Paths occur through usage. Places that we visit, for water or food or fuel, and places that we like to go to or through. The way that we walk on them imprints our energy.
I sometimes see words as acronyms, so PATH might be People And Their Habits.

When I first went to Emma's land, Tir Ysbrydol, I was struck by the intricate lacework of paths. Going there since, I have seen how they evolve. Some have gone, others have shifted, often in response to the slow walk of seedling trees out into the fields. Trees finding their own path...

It is interesting to see paths in towns, and notice which ones are real, and those that are unused.
People walk their own paths, and if there isn't one they make it.
Look in any retail park for this.
It might annoy the architect, and the contract gardener, whose dogwood hedge gets trampled, but human spaces are mutable. If they are imposed, they often get desecrated with graffiti.



I am on digger watch today .
We have a digger man  in the wet field, excavating a large pond and I am sitting here in case he wants advice. Really I don't know any better than him, although he has got a tendency to cut straight lines that needs checking. The thing is just happening. A giant water- being is being born.
My job is to pump out the brown soup that constantly tries to fill it.



This bottom land at Fachongle is a feast of springs.
I envisage a string of three ponds, fed by a strong spring near the house. Each will have a different character. This one is going to be the biggest and deepest. A home hopefully for carp.

I wonder what John Seymour would have to say. Much struggle has gone on over the years to drain this field
yet it's wetter than ever.
A heaven of ragged robin and flag irises.

A lot of water in this blog. And paths.
All going with the flow.

27>Source Two

 Am going deep today.

My back is calling me to take time, to take care, to take note,
so here it is.

I got armed up after a warrior coffee. with my bag, slung like my school satchel on my back, radio and scythe and secateurs.
Final objective, the Spring

Was waylaid by the garden and it's plea bargainers. Water Water, Weed Weed, Save Save, they shout.
I gave emergency medical care to my blotchy, withering Globe Artichokes. A mixture of text and faith and ignorance.

Then I followed my scythe up the bracken spilt paths to the spring.

I started reaching in, into that meagre pool of water, and dredging  out the peaty ooze.

I only came back here for a sieve and my bronze mattock, to clear deeper in.

I have had mint tea
No escape now,
Back up the hill.

I clawed out the sludge. Years of it. Pawed it off the well's bottom.
When it hardens down, I will plant mint nearby. Then I scooped out the remaining water.
As I worked, my head inside the springs cave, wafts of mist came from a clay wall on the right.
The base is scattered with chips of bluestone. Some larger pieces are embedded in the clay. Bluestone has long been regarded as having healing effects.
This is a sacred place.

I left the site like an urchin, my trousers stiff with mud.
Then I heard John Penymynydd chipping away. His stone song.
He is building a waterway for the stream that has got lost in the builders' chaos of next door.
We walked together to his cistern, and to see the stream that should flow further, onto my land.

Later, he came down to my hut with a container of water.
I gave him a cabbage. We are learning simple, peasant ways.

After supper I went to see my spring. How it was recovering. The water is still like milky coffee.
I sieved a few leaves and bits of stem off the surface with my fingers .
Then I followed my pipe down, and siphoned it, until muddy water gushed out.



At least the garden has a supply again.
I must use it sparingly.
And hope for rain.

I will be drinking some interesting cups of tea for a few days.

26>Source One

I went for a cup of tea at John and Rosemarys' a couple of days ago. They live in Penymynydd, the cottage above here.
 John was concerned about his spring, or rather the fact that he shares it with a holiday cottage, that has just been renovated to include three bathrooms. The source is up on the mountain, across a sheep-ridden farmland, and he has to filter and treat it for ecoli.

He has a large concrete tank that holds a week's supply, which  secures them from occasional interruptions in flow, but has just had his granddaughter and family to stay, who each had three showers a day, and that has made him realise what the neighbours might use.
Urban habits do not encourage recognising finite natural supply.

We have had a dry year. The Spring was alarmingly so, but even since, the soakings and drizzles have done little but dampen the surface.

When I was back at Fachongle, with broadband access, I looked up whether I could download the films, Manon de Source and Jean de Florette, so that I could show them. Water and its absence dominate these brilliant French films.
The main character is an intentionally blocked spring that results in a death and heart-break.
This land feels as wild and peasant as that portrayed. No cicadas though, and a bit greener.
For now.

It wasn't on the iTunes store, so I looked to see if I could download a copy elsewhere. The only available source seemed to be a pirate Bit-Torrent. (Copious flow of information) So I gave up.

I left the tap on in the garden here last night. A mistake.
   So my first task when I came here this afternoon was to go up to siphon the pipe to my spring to restore the flow.

I was shocked to see that the water left in the spring is a meagre, muddy puddle.

I feel this knowledge resounding through every thought that I have now. One part of me plans future strategies like storage tanks. Another just feels completely shaky and insecure.

Who knows what is to come. Freezing, dry winters followed by late, dry springs maybe. That's what we have had recently.

There is an occasional stream, that flows onto the land, then sinks away into the ground. This land is porous.

I wrenched my back recently, and feel weak and wobbly from that, and now the lifeblood of my greater being, this land, is in jeopardy. So both my bodies feel challenged.

Maybe I WAS feeling a little too comfortable! 
Sixty and Smug.

Maybe there is a greater source, some deeper spring in my life, that I need to acknowledge.

And learn and to tap.