Postscript to a Year

Flowing from the west,

November afternoon sun

Blesses the river.

Last week near sunset just before the Ottauquechee goes into the Connecticut.

River Rising

While I am not committing to pictures of the river for "most days," as I did over the past year, I could not resist sharing this one on this rainy day.  In contrast, last week looked like this:

The Top of the River

Last Friday, I drove as far up the Ottauquechee watershed as I could, following River Road west past the Sherburne Library and Killington Town Hall. I took a very steep dead-end dirt road up Wolf Hill, which rises at the end of the gentle valley River Road valley.  The watercourse which evolves into the river is down on the right somewhere in this picture.  I had neither the will or footwear to bushwhack my way to find it.  I thought this was as close as I would get to the headwaters and so mused about the mysterious beginnings of this river I sought to know.

I did not quite have it right.  Driving back down Wolf Hill Road in low gear, I turned right to take the last piece of River Road, heading north toward Rt. 100.  My map suggested that a northerly branch of the headwaters might be visible until it reached its source.  Just short of Rt. 100, I saw through the trees on some land marked "Private" what looked like a small pond.  I decided this must be the head of the river.  Beyond Rt. 100, the map shows a shift in topography and the beginning of a different watershed.

The stream emerged from the private patch to follow River Road.  As I drove back down the hill, the infant Ottauquechee flanked the road, little more than a drainage ditch.

Day 365 - Some More to Come

This is the view of the Ottauquechee from the Middle Bridge around 4:30 Saturday, September 26.  I began the blog with a picture taken on September 27, 2014.  With this post, I share the last of my year's worth of images.  I set out to take a picture from the same spot on the bridge "most days." I have done most days, although I am a bit disappointed I did not do more.  In the end, I took pictures on 287 of the 365 days.  I am gratified and grateful that the blog received an average of more than 10 page views a day, and while this is not exactly going "viral," I felt I was in conversation with friends about something meaningful.  Thank you for joining me in this enterprise!

While this is the last post of a daily picture of the river, I will share with you in the days ahead some of the hours I spent driving along the length of the Ottauquechee from its source in a gentle valley under Wolf Hill in Killington to its flowing into the Connecticut River just after a sharp drop over falls by two covered bridges in Hartland.

And as a teaser...

On this next to last day of my year of blogging on the river, I began earlier than usual.  This picture I took about 6:40 a.m.

Upriver, the scene was like this:

A few minutes later, I took one more, from a a different spot on the bridge, 

looking downstream again.

I spent the afternoon, driving the length of the Ottauquchee, from its Killington headwaters to the Connecticut River.  More on this later.

Shrinking Stream

Earth, Air, Fire and Water

Our river participates in at least two dynamics which bring it into being and take it beyond.  

Forces older than thought shaped the Ottauquechee watershed: drifting continents, rising and shrinking peaks and water's demand to flow down.

Water pours along the creases of the landscape, rises in evaporation, sinks beneath the earth, finds the sea and begins its wheel of flowing all over again.  That molecule of one hydrogen and two oxygen atoms recognizes few barriers.  It owns earth and air, and dances with fire.

Clouds

This morning as I left the bridge, a band of German tourists just off a bus, aimed their cameras at this Vermont phenomenon, a covered bridge.  I should have taken a picture of them taking a picture of me coming off the bridge.

Equinox Minus 2

Evening Shadows

Morning Shadows

Perfection Continues

I have noticed that the images seem more compelling, more beautiful, when darkness and light seem to vie with one another, the light winning.

Watersheds

Seeing the Ottauquechee from this one spot day after day spurs me to look at every river I see in a different way.  I notice the water level.  I try to figure out what watershed the stream drains.

From the river's point of view, watershed is all.

I am approaching a metaphorical watershed, as I turn my attention away from the river with the conclusion of this year's discipline of photographing the river most days.  I find it shocking that I will have missed nearly three months worth of days.  This will be the 278th post, with only eleven more days to go, and I will be away for a few of those.

All the same, I will have a year on the river to share, one way or another.

Cooler Air

After the heavy rain, cooler air came with mixed clouds and sun.  The river had risen some.

Rain Coming

Moisture-rich grey forms -

reflected, shadowed - hover

over he river.

Hints of Fall

Clear and Cooler

While still officially summer, today felt like a beginning of fall, cooler, crystal clear.  After yesterday's rain, the river rose a foot or so.  I went upstream and took a picture of the Ottauquechee in West Woodstock.

More Love on the Bridge

In light of yesterdays' post on the love and the Middle Bridge, I share the photo below, taken at the point on the bridge where I take my pictures.

Bridge of Love

In the humid and hot air around 6 p.m., as I approached the bridge, a man took a photo of a woman leaning against the opening of the walkway.  Moments later she hugged him.

Justices of the Peace have performed marriages on this bridge.  I once witnessed a proposal here. Two photographers earlier this week took shots of two young women embracing one another in the middle of the street leading on to the bridge.  I officiated at a wedding last Saturday and overheard the bride refer to the "bridge pictures" that would be part of the day's program.  One December, "bridge pictures" were taken before the service at St. James, and the party arrived at the church coatless and freezing.

What is it about this bridge, love and marriage?

The River Turns the World Upside Down

A close-up of the surface shows the sky and trees speckled with foam bits from the upstream rapids.

In the afternoon, kids waded downstream in the 90 degree heat.

Clear on Clear

With this long string of clear days and the resulting drop in the level of the Ottauquechee, the life on the river seems more intense.  The insect skimmers skate on the river's surface tension by the hundreds.  Humans find all kinds of ways of getting into the water:  swimming, wading, tubing.  Birds dive in or paddle or drink from the nearly still waters below the bridge.  The images over the past two weeks have been remarkably similar, varying some as the stream shrinks.

Watching Ravens

This morning, with mist 

over the river, ravens

waited for the light.

Final Weeks

I began this river journal on September 27, 2014, with the intention of carrying it through for one year. With that plan in mind, I have three weeks and a day left before I finish.

My question of the Ottauquechee was and is, "What is it like for you?"  This must be an open-ended question.  The very nature of a river denies the idea of closure.  Of course, the river had a beginning, and will have an end, a lifetime beyond our comprehension.  Does the river have an experience?  For thousands of years, human beings took it for granted that rivers had spirits, conscious of what it did, even intending what occurred within and just beyond its banks.  We call this superstition.

In this age of human-caused damage to the Earth, the exercise of assigning a spirit to natural realities like rivers may have a surprising value.  Rivers have many characteristics we assign to sentient beings: movement, complex chemistry, acute responsiveness to its surroundings, voices, to name a few.

Whether conscious or not, rivers have a being: moving, speaking, nurturing, sometimes destroying.

Granting in the imagination a conscious being to the river, and asking the question - What is it like for you? - may allow us to know the river in ways we could not otherwise.  For sure, if we persist, we will meet the river in unexpected ways.

In the next weeks, as I bring this journal to a close, I will try to share the ways I have met the Ottauquechee, and admit the mysteries that remain.

Today, artists met the river from their perspectives, along the bank, near the bend before the now-dwindling rapids.

Bird Rising

Another misty morning along a quiet river.

Yesterday in the afternoon I took this close-up, somewhat attenuated, shot of the river edge. The darker vegetation on the left shows the highest level the river reached with the spring freshets.  The stream continues to dwindle.

As I took the picture, a bird plunged into the river for a bug or fish and swiftly flew out of the water.  The shot captured the bird rising, with the water disturbed just below.  In the calm stretch of water downstream from the bridge, the concentric circles bred by that plunge went as far as the other shore.

Full Sun, Shrinking Stream

Mist Rising

Mid-day Light

Early Morning Light

Four Years Since Irene

Although we had a day of rain raising the river for a time, the level dropped again.  You can tell on a day as quiet as this the stream is shrinking. The rocks rising from the water tell the story.  Just above where water and stone meet a dark line of damp, like a shadow, reveals that the river ran an inch or two higher not long ago.  The flood stoked by Tropical Storm Irene smashed through here exactly four years ago.

Morning Clarity

Flow of Clouds

Sometimes the flow of clouds match or exceed the flow of the river.

Evening Light

Before the Rain

Early Leaves Falling

This morning a light wind made ripples almost like goose pimples on the surface.  Yellow blade-shaped leaves fell here and there.  One twirled at an angle away from the bridge before its still landing on the slow-moving current.

Early Sunday Morning

Clear Shrinking Stream

As the water level continues to drop, the clarity increases.  Every detail of the bottom can be seen through the surface.  The only barrier comes from the vanishing circles begun by the tiny water skimmers' sudden turns on this calm stretch of the Ottauquechee.

Over, Under, Around the River

In the morning yesterday, a bird swooped into the water, flew up and swooped again, after a fish or a bug.  Then from below the water, something broke the surface, sending rings outward.  I may have caught a glimpse of a fish tail swishing.  Even from the height of the bridge, insect water skimmers could be seen darting swiftly in odd directions.  Right below, on the right bank, a mom stood in knee deep water while her daughter, about five, played with the mud.