Mother nature has a way of testing our strength. Now that Walden has been dug and the burm for the wetland created, I patiently wait each day for the water to arrive. A small cairn now rests at the bottom of the pond to welcome the water when it comes, I've even sat by the burm and envisioned the valley full of waiving cattails, echoing with the calls of Red-Winged Black Birds, it all can't come fast enough. There hasn't been a day gone by that I haven't gazed deep into the clay wondering if the water lay trapped within. Today, mother nature answered my plea. The wind rocks the walls of the yurt as the rain weighs heavily on the roof, it's 3am and I'm sitting in bed wondering if the Ark will float through the field and smash right through the centre of the burm. The sun rises and the rain has weaned, I slip on my rubber boots to assess the damage from mother natures many tempered moods. The council fire ring is under water, archery range flooded and a picnic table is slowly dragged away as Beaver creek expands to carry her load down to lake Erie. What has happened in the wetland? Running across the lookout trail with camera in hand I hear the sound of rushing water in the distance. My heart races, what has happened in the wetland? I crest the hill and see to my shear delight a lake filling the entire valley. The burm is holding the heavy sediment load of the field at bay, or is it? A 200' long burm from bank to bank no has the weight of 8 - 10' of water heavily pushing on her new walls. It wants to make its way to the creek, it'll eventually get it's wish. I notice on the north slope that the water has found a flaw in our work, my fears are confirmed as I have visions of 400 truckloads of clay being washed into the creek. I rush to secure a water pump, canoe, and enough man power to take some of the load off the banks. Finally by 9:30 at night, the banks are still intact and the water now held at bay from spilling it's sediment into the creek. This project has become bigger than I had ever imagined. The whole idea of the burm was to catch runoff from the farmers field and allow mother nature time to clean that water before being released back into the creek. A water improvement project that will benefit all downstream as well create tremendous habitat for numerous wetland inhabitants. We've still got a long way to go, but I'll never stop trying to improve the land in which I live.

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