An Even Slower Road Home

So VDOT got a late start on this project, supposed to have begun last Monday. (And work will NOT be finished until at least July 22 or 23.)

The foreman realized how bad things really were, and instead of the single pipe with a 4 inch concrete cap, he decided this replacement needed two pipes and an 8 inch cap.

You can see they’ve dammed the creek upstream and are sending the water via a large-diameter flexible hose–like a firehose–back into the creek bed downstream of the construction.

So we’re hoping for no frog-chokers until this work is set in stone. To which, by the way, I might have a hard time not adding a short, pithy quote while the concrete is still wet after the pouring is over and the work day has ended.

So what should it be?

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” Isaac Newton

“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Yogi Berra

“Two roads diverged in the woods, and I took the one less traveled by. And ended up on Goose Creek.” Fred First

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Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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