Water Level

Growing up, I spent a lot of time on my grandparents' 20-acre farm in Ottsville, Bucks County, PA.  They purchased the raw land in the 1960's and built a house on it.  The property has a pond, maybe 100 feet in diameter, and it always stays full because it is fed by an active stream.  I went ice skating on it during the winters.  They raised beef in the lower fields and watered the animals using the water from the stream that runs through the property.  It was only a sunny, but I caught my first fish out of that pond. 

My grandparents were born a few years before the Great Depression and I frequently to ask them questions about their perspective on modern society.  They lived through World War 2, Vietnam, 9/11, and Barrack Obama.   Recently, the conversation turned to water management and I brought up their pond.  It turns out that building small ponds was a popular thing to do after World War 2.  Today, who knows how many permits and inspections you need, and from which bureaucratic agency. 

  • "I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.

    And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”

    ~ Steve Jobs

More Inspirational Quotes

precision beats power