dead cotton woods.
The canals are no more. They've been replaced by large pipes. They've been replaced to better regulate the water for irrigation. The little creeks and streams that crisscrossed pastures and fields have been replaced with sprinklers. This wastes less water, but the cotton-woods are dying. Without the water they dry up quickly and are gone.There's a large cove of cotton-woods to the east of the house. It sits on the property line of the two acres my mother's house sits on and the pasture that at one time belonged to us, but now belongs to someone else. They are all suffering. Those that aren't dead will be soon, and most are dead. We've begun to harvest the dry dead trees as firewood. That may seem harsh, but leaving the trees there promotes a fire hazard that has the potential to wreak havoc on my mother's house, my brother's house and the large newly built house that sits in what used to be the pasture. That cove of trees was my special place. We were building a 'hut' there. My nieces and nephews and I. It wasn't a hut, we never did more than nail several boards to a fallen elm tree. But the place was hidden from the road, and I couldn't get in trouble for being in a place I shouldn't be (like in the old cars that my father used to 'collect'). We would play there on occassion. It had an air of mystery about it that I miss.
My brother's house is "down the road" from us, to the east, about a block a way, or an 1/8th of a mile. He has five acres, much of which is pasture. He did have a garden at one time, a large one. But he doesn't keep it any more. Sometimes he keeps animals, an occassional pig, chickens for eggs. If he keeps a cow, a pig, or a sheep it's only there long enough to be raised to slaughtering age, then it's killed, the meat stowed away in a deep freeze. There's a large dry hole just to the west of my brother's house. A pond. He made it to catch run off water, I think he may still have (or my mother, I don't know which) a share or a half a share of the water rights. But the run off never comes, the canals have been piped up, and the sprinklers don't soak the ground enough to promote run off. So my brother has a large hole in the pasture now that seems to serve no purpose.
My sisters house is north east of us, about 1/2 of a mile by the road, about half that length if you cut across the pasture. One was once able to look out of the dining room or kitchen window and see my sisters house, but now there is the new house obstructing the view. It's not a bad location for a home. Not the best, it sits slightly lower than either my brothers house or my sisters (or my mothers) there was a slight dip through the pasture there, that during wet years (the few we ever had) the water would collect and near the road turn to swamp. Now it's been built up with fill dirt so the house could have it's foundation. The house itself would be about the equivalent of 2 city blocks away, or 3 if walking along the road way.
The rest of the pasture remains, though the cotton-woods are dying through out. There are two large ones. Monstrous trees. One behind the house here where I live, the other far back in the field. I like those trees. I'm sad they've died, but all things must end I suppose. There are copses of russian olive trees scattered through out the pasture. Mostly concentrated along where the canals used to be. In my youth we would venture, my nieces and nephews and I, through these canals overgrown with roots and branches from the russian olive trees and the cotton-woods. We would pretend that they were caves, or tunnels full of monsters to fight. When we weren't doing that we would be 'sword fighting' with sticks or pvc pipes in the pasture. I would idle away the days alone wading through the streams. Walking back and forth from my grandmother's house to mine, pants soaked and often times shirt soaked from my ventures.
Now, where the woods of russian olives were sit two houses, one belonging to my late cousin and his wife (which is a strange tale, their marriage, for another day) the other to my uncle and his wife. Land was given to my cousin in 95, before my father died. The land my uncle's house sits on was sold to him by my sister, her five acres, that she decided she didn't want. Many of the russian olives are still there though -those dastardly plants are nigh impossible to kill- but the canal is gone, replaced by a pipe. You can see where canals were as you drive out here. They crisscrossed the landscape outside of town, all you have to do is look for the dead cotton-wood trees.
posted by F.G. Shaw @ 12:36 AM
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