The Waterfall

... barefooted Glen making the waterfall ...

 I wanted to take the snake grass out of the rocks at the point where the stream crosses under the road and falls down to the railroad track.

As I was working on that project I was moving sand around so that it wouldn’t plug the culvert and soon I was imagining a space there where there would be a small waterfall.

I asked Glen how to make waterfalls.

... Hannah Pilling learning to drink from the stream ...

Previously I have tried to do that in a stream and all I get it a line of rocks with water flowing freely through the cracks.

“Landscape fabric,” he said. “Just line the inside with landscape fabric. I have some at my house if you have none.”

A few days later I could hear commotion down at the stream.

Hannah is being coached on how to climb the rocks.
"Let her hands do the climbing."

Little voices just talking and playing.

I went to check out what was happening, and Glen was down in the stream with a shovel, a rake and some landscape fabric.

Landon and Piper had joined him as well as Alice, Michael and Betty.

Not everyone needs five children under 7 at their feet while they are moving rocks and laying down landscape fabric.

Landon got in the stream to help until his feet hurt from chilblains.

I don’t think he had felt that before.

Piper Pilling with Canada Day Face painting beside her eye

“Let your feet warm up in the sun and they will go away,” said his grandfather whose own bare-feet were in the stream.

“You have a feature there that other people pay one million dollars for,” said Jeremy as his family strolled down the road on their way to the beach an hour later.

“We are just finishing up here,” said Glen and are on our way to join you at the beach.

In the meantime I got to watch all five kids run across the stream, splash in the puddles of mud on the road from the storm the day before, and chat with each other about the relative pleasures of work vs. play.

Landon Pilling offering to help his grandfather

Their grandfather told us that they have a family saying about work.

If you snooze, you loose.

I took that to mean that the fun is out there in environment for those who want to build waterfalls and change the course of streams.

Arta