Desiree’s Dam

For several weeks, Desiree has expressed a desire to construct a dam across the small branch of the creek just below our cabin.  Interestingly, the stretch of water in question has a history with dams.

My late wife and I constructed a half-hearted stone dam there in June of 2003.  We did so to create a small waterfall.  Several years of heavy spring runoff waters gradually dismantled the dam.

In the ensuing years, the small channel gradually widened.  This forced me to extend various logs and planks across the water so I could reach the creek’s primary flow.

In 2018, I flopped a long section of bridge decking across the water there.  Two years later, beavers filled in below my plank with a stick and mud dam.

Yesterday, at Desiree’s urging, we constructed a handsome stone dam about three feet upstream from the beaver dam.  We used as our main building material angular chunks of shale gathered only a few feet from the cabin.

Really, I provided only day-labor for the project.  I used a wheelbarrow to haul stones of various size down to the creek.   Desiree engineered the dam and performed most of the work in the water.

I am not convinced our work was entirely adult in nature.  Something about water brings out the play in all of us.  At the same time, Desiree can build a righteous dam!

Desiree at the Wheelbarrow

Desiree Placing a Stone

Me at Work

Finished Dam

—Mitchell Hegman