Water is our multi-functional resource, and also renewable.
But those many uses can conflict with one another, and diminish its capacity to sustain repeated use.
So often it’s water that ties us back in time to a community.
Around the bend and up the creek from where I grew up in Harford County, Maryland is Eden Mill. It brought electricity to nearby Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania back in the era when the grid wasn’t the interconnected whole it is today.
How small a world is it?
My stepfather’s mother was raised in the Stansbury Mansion. Her father oversaw the mill’s operation decades ago.
Today, Eden mill is a quiet park, tucked in the upstream reaches of the Deer Creek watershed, and also an ideal one:
It’s a perfect blend of history, nature, scenery, recreation, and community …
All tied together by the water that runs through it.
On the day I was there the leaves were turning and the creek cascading.
When I listened I could almost hear back in time.
They’d all be happy to know people still come here to watch the water flow.
Which made me think:
This stretch of creek is both multifunctional and renewable.
Decades later, it continues to sustain.
