Ozark Spring House: Mild, Rainy Winter Day
Ozark Spring House
January 27, 2012
Whenever I need my Ozark fix -- which is every morning -- I click over to the website maintained by Ozark photographer Tim Ernst and spend some time contemplating his latest photographs. This morning in Seoul is January 28th, but since Arkansas lies on the back side of the International Dateline, Mr. Ernst must have posted this update of January 27th only some hours ago, though the picture was taken a couple of days earlier. The Ozarks had gotten a bit of rain, apparently, so the Buffalo River Valley had hundreds of waterfalls pouring off its bluffs. Mr. Ernst had gone out to take pictures and also took one of this small spring house directly beside a tiny waterfall:
It rained all day Wednesday, but I was able to sneak out for a couple hours in the afternoon with camera and tripod to visit a couple of nearby waterfalls. I have been unable to get enough [photographs] of the [small waterfall alongside this] little spring house in Boxley, and it only runs well during flooded times for a few hours, so I stopped there first and spent some time with this old friend. There were a few raindrops coming down but nothing too bad. I just love the look and texture of the smooth stones they used for this little building, also the lush moss-covered little bluffline right next to it, and of course the splashing waterfall in between.Boxley is a small Arkansas village on the upper Buffalo River, and I'm guessing that this is an old spring house from which the locals used to get their water, back in former days. The spring itself -- seen emerging from the pipe in the lower part of the above photo -- surely runs year round. Only the miniature waterfall requires rainy weather to run. Below is a close-up of the falls.
I find these two images so peaceful to gaze at, especially the upper one, with the full stone structure in view. In my younger days, I believed that I'd make my way back to the Ozarks after my worldly adventures, but in my case, Thomas Wolfe seems to have been right, for I likely won't be going home again, not to live, anyway. I guess Seoul is my home now, and I'm getting to know this great city of Asia, but I do need my Ozarks, if only in snapshots, so I'm glad that a man like Tim Ernst is around, daily taking photographs in the Ozark Mountains of Northern Arkansas.
I encourage others to visit his website and look around . . .
Labels: Arkansas, Ozark Mountains, Photography, Tim Ernst
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 6:43 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I found myself worrying that the rushing water might undermine the structure's foundation!
I wondered about that, too, but it's probably sitting on solid limestone rock.
Jeffery Hodges
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I may try to find this site over the upcoming weekend. My wife and I are going to a cabin in the woods for our 4th anniversary, and it is very close to Boxley. Even though we live within driving distance of many peaceful and relaxing Ozark hide-aways, we unfortunately do not get out to them as often as we would like.
Jay
To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, you don't know what you've got till you're gone, as I discovered through leaving the Ozarks.
Jeffery Hodges
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Well, we did not find this well house, but we did hike to the "Glory Hole" which is a stream that actually has bored a large hole in rock and falls into a cavern below. It is close to Boxley and since it had rained the night before, plenty of water was running through it. Will try to send you a picture or two via email in the near future.
Jay
I think that I know that structure. I'll be happy to see the photos since we can compare them to a photo, also borrowed from Mr. Ernst, of a frozen waterfall in the Glory Hole.
Jeffery Hodges
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