Q: What is THAT? A: C'est un pipe

Back in January of this year, we made our first visit to the CCPTIW (Chocolate Cream Puff In The Woods) as potential buyers. We looked through the interior, walked around the exterior, made notes, had thoughts and pondered deeply over carpenter bee holes/damage. After looking the house over thoroughly, we began to walk through the woods.

One of the first discoveries in the woods was the bog, a roughly 10' x 5' stagnant (?) body of water with no apparent source or runoff. Hmm, we mused, wonder what the mosquitos pay to get into that amusement park? Should be interesting when we hit the mid summer months. But that was (and is) something to explore for another day. We walked on.

The next geographic feature that we found was the creek. Again, WOOT! You have to understand that I grew up with an actively running creek in my parents' backyard, and it was a cool place to play in the summer, a treasure trove of fossils, and when it rained steadily, an awesome display of nature's power as the creek would occasionally destroy the bridges that were built for us to cross the creek. So multigenerational party in our back yard, we have a creek! And it's flowing! And...what's that sound?

It was the sound of running water, or at least falling water. Cool, we must have a waterfall somewhere. Let's go check it out! And as we walk further in the direction of the sound, we suddenly see it: a 6" PVC pipe emerging from the ground and spilling a clear, colorless liquid into the creek (see photo @ bottom of page). Holy superfund, Batman!

Of course, we do what prospective home buyer would do. We freak. Is this active runoff from someone's waste line? Is this toxic? Will our children grow additional appendages if they play down here? What's going on?

Relief (or at least answers) came from NDN (Next Door Neighbor), who noticed strangers snooping around in the woods and came over to investigate. He told us that the pipe was actually the redirected runoff for an artesian well, which supplied a regular flow of water into the creek.

Ooooooh. The gears start turning. We could build boats and send them down our "always on" creek. We could build a dam and increase the depth to something more than shoe-soaking level. We could...we could...install a hydroelectric generator? Ooooooooh.

Next time: Getting lost/oriented in the woods