Lately I seem trapped working in the garden everyday I am home and in spare minutes the other days. I needed a break and went off exploring the creek.
My Ozark Creek
One of the things we love and hate about this place is the creek. We hate it because it makes fencing impossible across it. It floods and destroys things, especially the last few years.
We love it for its beauty and its water. The goats use it for drinking water. We used it for washing off when we first moved here, before we moved into the house. Now it waters my garden during dry weather.
Exploring the Creek
Almost no rain has fallen here in a couple of months. The creek no longer really runs like a creek, but as a series of connected pools. Water still flows, but down below the gravel surface.
I walked down the dry creek bed dodging wet areas to find a nice pool to look in. Tiny minnows fled from my shadow as tall shadows usually mean someone wanting them for dinner.
Interesting rocks made walking challenging with their uneven sizes and tendency to roll when stepped on. Water striders plied the water surface of the pool I stopped at. Plants lined the steep banks. Nothing else seemed to be in the pool.
Who Lives There?
Even though the pool looked empty except for the minnows, lots of creatures lived there. To find them I picked up the rocks and looked at the undersides and in the gravel under the rock. I found snails, water pennies, even a hellgrammite – larval dragonfly. There were larval horseflies too. I didn’t kill them, although that was tempting considering their attacks on the goats and me once they grow up.
Each rock was put back as I had found it. That way all the creatures were back where they belonged.
Bigger Denizens
I know crayfish live in the creek. A darter was under one rock I picked up. But crayfish were no where, or were they? I waited. And waited. Finally, one crawled out from beneath some rocks.
It was time to leave. My garden needed watering.
