The Outback

 

The meadow beyond the back yard is privately owned, but the owners maintain a border trail that abutters can walk.  Let's explore!

Views can be dramatic even on the plainest cloudy November day.  The meadow lies beyond the yard features here...

The meadow was growing high with grasses and brush all summer. The owner recently cut everything down for maintenance. Otherwise, it would become forested eventually, lose character and would be a different habitat.

A border path goes halfway round the meadow, then ends at the brook.

Below, can you see the brook as it flows toward bottom left. In 2018, this brook surged and washed out part of my street, as featured in previous post.

As the brook leaves the meadow....

Below, the meadow is to the left. Entrance to my yard (through an opening in the rock wall) is on the right.

LT followed me on the adventure.  She held a playful look for just long enough to catch it on film.

Good Morning

Later I went for a sandwich and found an unusual situation. In back of the store, was an archeological dig.

Recently this year, someone had found a shaped stone on the ground that was not natural to the area. He reported it to the state archaeologist. It could be paleolithic, I was told, which means possibly 12,000 years old.  Around that time, the New England area became habitable after the Ice Age.

So the archaologist came out with a team.  "you should go around back" said the sandwich guy.  Everyone was casual and friendly.

In the photo, they are sifting through the shallow soil. I was shown a small piece of sharpened chert that was just found. Chert is a sandstone related to flint, of which the nearest natural deposits are in the Hudson valley. So it is inferred that it was brought to this location by trade routes.  There are only a couple "paleo" sites in Connecticut, that is, where objects of 12,000 years ago, have been found.

Autumn Pastels

River Crossing

Part of my street washed out in 2018 after several inches of rain.  First, it's important to learn about culverts to understand the situation. Neptune Brook flowed beneath the street, through a culvert. A culvert is a pipe or passage for water, with earth on top of it to allow a road to cross, or buildings to be built.

Below is a culvert like the one that washed out on Neptune. It's a very old style, at least 100 years old, made from stone.

The culvert was too small to handle the volume of rain that was flowing in the brook, in September 2018.  It was a record amount of rain. The small opening in the culvert was not big enough to handle the flow. Debris could also have easily clogged such a small culvert.  The force of the backed-up water pushed the earth above the culvert away. And around 50 feet of the street with it!

Climate change could be a contributing factor of why the culvert lasted for 100 years, up until now.  I am sure they will rebuild it to have larger capacity.

The repair will be half a million dollars, according to an early estimate in the local paper. The town had to get FEMA funding.  After years of getting the funding and designing the replacement, contractors began setting up to begin the repair in Oct. 2020. No houses were made inaccessible due to the washout, so it was not an urgent priority to fix for that reason.

Last week, I walked down to see them getting ready for the repair. But more interesting than the chasm caused by the washout, was this fine view of the Moodus River.

While on my reconnaissance, I took this relaxing video (10 seconds video):

Here's another example of a culvert. We owe these things gratitude. Without culverts, we'd all be stuck in the Mississippi mud!

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The map below shows how my house relates to the washout. Neptune Brook flows into the Moodus River. Where Neptune Brook flows under my street, is where the breach and washout occurred.  The above Moodus River video was taken from the bend in the road.

The news crew came bright and early the next day after the washout, with this to report:

WFSB News Clip

Neptune Brook is a quiet stream that flows right-to-left through the meadow out back.  Where the arrows are, behind these proud cats.