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[sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net>]

EarthNSky wrote:
> ...... My creek runs into it, but at the time I found the crawdad, even Rock 
> Creek had been dry for a year...so where the heck did that little fellow come 
> from if not an underground stream?
>   
Good question.  When we lived in SW VA, we were above a local creek 
about 1000 feet or so, and below that, another thousand feet or so to 
the New River.  There were many springs in the area, one spring about a 
quarter mile above the house where we had a springbox and line that ran 
to the springhouse attached to the house, so the outflow from that line 
ran through the house and excited below it.  Direct overflow from the 
springbox ran down the hill and came out beside the house but that gully 
was dry most of the time, as there were several splits above it. 

But every couple of years there would be a storm and there'd be a flash 
flow (fast, scary, 4-foot wall of water that could well have washed an 
unwary person right to the New), and it never failed but that when that 
happened the boys would bring in a half-dozen or so giant crawdads 
(well, giant to us, 6-8" long) which they got crawling up the banks of 
the suddenly-filled gully, away from the water.  When the water was 
down, they'd look and look for more, and we not only found no big ones, 
we couldn't find any at all.  Never saw one except for when it was 
flooding.  Never saw one of any size in the springhouse.   We finally 
concluded they were somewhere underground in between floods and had 
gotten washed out in the sudden flow of water.  Wade was about 4 or so, 
and his question, when we finally figured it all out "You mean we're 
drinking crawdad pee in our water?".

Interesting, though, to contemplate how much/many live things there are 
where we don't see them at all. 

SJ, snug in her little house while it snows outside, and snows, and 
snows......