The snow from December 5th lingered, then turned to ice, then to mud. At first I didn’t go walking in the far arroyo because I couldn’t see the ground, then because the paths around my house were too treacherous, then because my drive was too mucky.
Just before Christmas I felt so confined I walked farther down the paved road by my house than I ever had before. Then, the middle of January, I walked even farther, down to the second of the three arroyos I cross to get home. The far arroyo is in the other direction.
The mud and ice got worse. I finally got in the car and drove down the road looking for some place to walk. I parked in an area where I’d seen people leaving their cars and headed back to the second arroyo. Then, I noticed women were parking a bit farther down the road to walk their dogs.
There the adventure began. They were threading the banks of the main ditch that feeds my area. I followed the banks to the end of the undeveloped land and back, an area I had passed on the road a few days before.
I suddenly wanted to know more about the ditch. I’ve been here twenty some years and knew bits and pieces. Last fall, in a walk described on October 22, I found the end. Now I wanted to know the beginning, its twistings and turnings, its ways of delivering water. I wanted to know how it got from the Santa Cruz river to the far arroyo, I even wanted to know the origins of the Santa Cruz.
I chased it in pieces, beginning in the middle as one does with so many things in life, and now, like the aging person I am, I’m trying to make sense of what I’ve seen.
Photographs:
1. Ice in the main path to my house, 18 January 2012.
2. The second or deep arroyo, 11 January 2011; comparing the two story house at the back and the tops of the saplings gives some idea of the depth of this arroyo.
3. The local ditch or acequia, about four miles from my house, 20 January 2012.
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