The Sweep is running with water, it has waterfalls and pools and swirly rapids (on a very small scale); the rocks, and river bed pebbles have been washed clean of mud and undergrowth; there are islands, high banks with footholds, low- banked lengths with grassy borders. It is a childhood dream of a little river, a river from all the children's 'journey adventure' stories that people wish they had played and adventured along when they were small. There are long glades beside it, then ramparts of rock and fern and oak trees and, finally, olive groves before the house.
When I was a child the rivers in the Pennines, at Low Row and on the Fells were like this; there they are called 'burns'; here, in the pre- appennini, they are called ruscelli.
It hasn't snowed except briefly in the Pratomagno, and rained very little, so we must assume that the cleaning of the woodlands has released an acquifer to flow in its original bed; someone somewhere is missing a lot of water, I hope they don't come looking for it here.
2 comments:
The Sweep is still running, and there's been no rain; so we've opened a route to an underground source that had been diverted by 50 years of woodland neglect. There are no signs of fauna but there are all kinds of flora setting out their stalls on the banks and on the islets.
bellini!
Are there starting to be coloured flowers? it must be looking very beautiful
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