If you had a free-range childhood, you would have spent a lot of time in water. Of course this was absolutely not permitted, and all the more fun for that reason. The Beck in our village was definitely off-limits, and as we spent a disproportionate amount of time playing in it, the chances of us falling in and ending up being wet-through head to toe, and therefore potentially grounded - the worst of all punishments, were fair to middling. We therefore became adept at sneaking back into our homes and changing clothing while siblings and friends ran distractions.
When I was on holiday with my dad, building dams was a simple pleasure. These days we have put those skills to some use. We have a millpond at the White House, which is fed via a millrace from the Maple Tree Beck. For water to reach the millrace, there must be a dam feeding the pipe under the valley to the millrace. Over the years we have built this and it has been washed away several times. So each time, we get better at building. We don't want to use brought in building materials which would spoil the natural environment - that really feels like cheating to any good childhood dam builder.
You start with your largest rocks and then to these fill holes with rocks in decreasing sizes. Eventually you'll find that you can feel with your hands any place where the water current is still dragging through, and place smaller and smaller stones into these gaps until the drag stops. Simple. But then there is the millrace to contend with. This is some half a mile long. Sometimes our neighbours put horses on the millrace, which destroys it. Or sometimes moles will connect too many underground tunnels. Sometimes trees will be stolen, meaning that as the roots die, holes appear. Or wild boar will turn the watercourse into a deep, wide bog of muddy fun. Whatever the reason, we are often out that way with spades and wellies fixing things up. I guess we could put in a long plastic pipe, but again, this would ruin the appearance of the place.
So, with concerted efforts we managed to get the millrace running again and started to refill the pond. It was looking great, I was happy with our successful work. Then someone went down into the cellar to get potatoes. The cellar was flooded. On a hunch, I opened the sluice gate on the pond and let the extra water out. The water in the cellar went down again. A finger-tip search of the bank of the millpond revealed a capped, but rusted pipe which connected the pond to our house. I capped the problem and made a mental note of the complex connections between house and pond. The neighbours told us they had absolutely no knowledge of what was there, and could do nothing to help us, despite having lived there for sixty plus years.
At present the resulting mill pond is a sad state of affairs. Since last summer something went very wrong and somehow the blocked pipes from the bank of the millpond opened up, making water spill out into the hen house and the open barn where our animals spend the winter months. This means that I have had to reduce the level of the pond by fifty centimeters, and this year we do not have any fish to watch from the tea deck. Even with the drastic reduction in the water level, we still have water leakage, and it's simply destroying the buildings that form the edge of the pond. So, I will actually have to take down those buildings and reduce the size of the pond considerably. All major works for which I will need help from friendly and willing builders, whereas what I have available is me.
My plan is to use gabions - the metal cages - to build a completely new dam wall some way away from the old one in the millpond. We will also put in decking around the pond so that it is wheelchair accessible, because it will be pleasant and is the right thing to do. And I also want to put in a wading pool - like the one by the lake in our local town - so that there is a sunny spot to paddle for adults and kids. Once the old buildings come down, we will have a nice view of the house and the pond from each. So. dam building continues.
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Bohemian Antiks Continue
Non-FictionTen years on from the original book, catch up with that British couple who moved to a big old house in the countryside of South Bohemia. We are not expats, we are British immigrants, trying our best to make sense of the society that is kind enough t...
