Is this a rain garden post?

Hooker Falls is a sensory overload as the sound of the crashing water, the mist touching your face and the cool water between your toes speaks of the power of water.

Finally got a chance to get away for a few days. This escape was courtesy of North Carolina Touring, a company that plans motorcycle trips for busy people. We spent three days traveling to and through the mountains of North Carolina, stopping to view and photograph beautiful water falls.

The trip started in Durham and after the necessary miles on I85 and I40, we began to travel two-lane black top through small mountain towns. My favorite was when we wound our way through lush river bottom land. As the black top narrowed, the scenery became quainter. We meandered past corn fields, tree farms, bee keepers and tiny cottages whose gardens dwarfed the homes the gardeners lived in.

There is something very special about viewing the land from the back of a motorcycle. The sound of air rushing past your helmet is mesmerizing. The smells are amazing. Fresh cut fields of hay, dips and curves that took you into deep forested places smelling of fern and moss and then the smell of water as you approached a bridge spanning a section of lake.

Three days on a bike and finally, I was grateful to pull into our driveway. The lawn cried out for a haircut neglected on the weekend but thankfully, the rain garden had taken care of itself.

Festival on the Eno - Observations

I spent several hours working the information booth for the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association at Durham's annual Festival on the Eno this 4th of July weekend.

It was gratifying to see the number of groups represented there that are actively involved in keeping our planet healthy.

Two things became very clear. Those that are involved in these organizations are well-informed and passionate about protecting our forests, wetlands, animals and waterways and especially those lands that help keep the balance between people living on and off the land and sustaining that land for future generations. The second thing was that large numbers of our population have only a vague idea of why this is important.

With all the publicity that the Falls Lake water quality issue has generated recently in our area, I would have thought that more people would have an understanding of the relationship between their drinking water and land use. Sadly that is not so.

Everyone of us that uses water lives in a watershed. Do you know which watershed you live in? Do you know how your actions affect your watershed?