High water--an event to celebrate

There’s a certain excitement in the air. It has nothing to do with the next calendared holiday, but it does have everything to do with this time of year and the weather.

To my knowledge, this is one event that, as of yet, has not been commercialized. They don’t sell souvenirs or tee-shirts; but I wasn’t the one to mention it.

I’m thinking of that exciting time when after a few days of warm weather, especially suddenly warm weather, the creeks fill up. These days are marked by the sudden appearance of large amounts of water in the streambeds and constitute a holiday season all of their own—high water.

As you know, the term “arid” is highly applicable to lands of The Basin. So when water in large enough quantities to make a noise runs, it is time to celebrate.

“High water” doesn’t necessarily mean the water flow at it’s greatest level, as the dictionary might lead you to believe. It simply means the arrival of anything more than a trickle—any level higher than the stingy flows of late winter. On the creek out my back door, it means any water at all.

The farmers and gardeners get especially excited about high water. They take Sunday drives every day of the week to go check on the flows. They get out of their pickups and stand on the edge of the creek in the same place every day and cast a beady eye on a certain rock or a tree stump in order to gauge the water level. They then declare ominously, “She’s up again today. If this hot weather holds, she’s going to keep rising. Who knows how much?”

In certain years, high water is a time to remember. When the weather turns hot abruptly, like it did last weekend, high water could more or less arrive in the form of a flash flood. A wall of water carrying soil and debris comes crashing down the creek, it’s lead edge fanning out, and water rolling over itself in a frantic hurry to get to some lower point—or so I’m told. The farmer who is furthest up the creek and observes that phenomenon has something to talk about for the rest of the summer—which is much longer than high water, or low water either, will last.

Farmers in The Basin observe to pray for “moisture” daily. They would pray for moisture after twenty straight days of rain. (I think that happened about once.) They like to see water in the irrigation ditches, of course, but what they surreptitiously want is enough snow in the mountains and a quick hot spring with temperatures high enough to bring down a good share of it all at once. There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned high water celebration, which means take the afternoon off to check it out and talk about it.

Their eyes gleam when they talk about the water jumping the creek banks and moving those banks around. And they really get worked up when they point out the extent to which the rocks are rolling in the creek beds. And it is something to hear.

The rock-rolling isn’t going to happen this year. Not enough snow up there. Since there are at least a couple of generations of Basin farmers in my immediate ancestry, I should know. So you can probably do your Sunday driving down in the valley where there’s more room.

By way of contrast, let me tell you about middle Ohio where a son of mine lives. There they practice a form of reverse irrigation. They lay perforated pipe in the fields in “furrows” for the purpose of draining the water away from their crops. If a person wants to construct a fish pond, all he needs is a hole and some fish. However a pond is not nearly the attraction there that it is here. People are quite likely to have them in their basements.

If you mention to a native Ohioan something about water shares or water rights, you get no sign of understanding, only a blank stare; and he will begin to choke if you bring up the practice of praying for rain.