"The Creek Runs On"

It is the last day of January and I am about out of January words.

 R.H. took the camera yesterday, after the storms of the night before, and walked up the creek from the house to the waterfall. This time Katie Belle didn't go with him.

Here is the creek view that our kitchen windows look out on:

Now we're walking towards the first bridge where the creek runs between the picnic shelter and the barn:

We can go under the bridge:

This is where the big black snake "Pappy" lives in the summer:

Now we're about halfway to the next bridge:

See all the slate at the bottom of the creek:

Let's cross the pond bridge:

And glance over to the little spring-fed pond where frogs mate. Come early spring this is where we'll hear the peepers' voices calling from.

These two sycamores weren't here in 1990 when we bought the place:

They help form a deep pool that our granddoggie Schnauzer Maddie loves to swim in when she visits. R.H. will have to get a picture of her the next time she comes home to Tennessee. Her designer hairdo gets ruined in this pool:

Here's the base of the waterfall that we took you to a few days ago:

There's a lot more water coming down now after the rains:

You can spot the beech trees easily. They're the ones that don't shed their yellow leaves until forced off by new ones in the spring:

January is a pretty month to take a creek walk, even if the snows have missed us so far. That being said, I am still reminded of Hal Borland who wrote that "nobody complains that January went too fast."

Amen to that?

"It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale."

Annie Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek