Pony Creek

The other day I was driving around the backroads taking pictures of some new fallen snow. I zigged and zagged down the roads letting memory or intuition take me to some interesting places. And while I didn’t notice at first, I begain to realize after a couple hours that I had crossed and recrossed and recrossed the same creek at least five times-  Pony Creek.

 I’ve been aware of this meandering creek since moving here to northeast Kansas several years ago, but it really hit home to me the other day as I kept crossing it over and over and over again. It wanders through 2 counties in Kansas and then winds its way up into Nebraska and empties into the Nemaha river.

 But it flows in anything but a straight line.

 It spends most of its time carving a switchback channel through rich farmland and woodlands, and flowing underneath a lot of country roads with all manner and size of bridges. The prettiest one is this beauty up in Nebraska.

 Its a truss bridge built in the early 1900s.

 There used to be a lot of truss bridges around when I was a kid, but over the years most of them have been replaced. I’m glad this one is still being used, and hope it will continue for years to come as it allows crossing over the one long continuous S-curved Pony Creek.  

 

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Suzanne

Cattle, corn, wheat, beans, mud, snow, ice, and drought. Plenty of fresh air and quiet. Our life is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous, but never boring.

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14 Responses

  1. Simply beautiful.

    Happy New Year!

  2. Lynda M O says:

    Happy New Year and thank you for the lovely photos you take and post for readers.

  3. Kara says:

    Great post to start the new year!

  4. Elaine Snively says:

    Reminds me of heading West and crossing over the Clark Fork numerous times.

  5. Julie says:

    These are lovely winter pix. Until I ‘had’ to walk the dog, we disliked winter…now I love it! I can see more of the surroundings, the birds, and the water is breath taking in the snow.
    Just beautiful and it says ‘get out there people!’

  6. Teresa says:

    Such beautiful pictures! I love those little meandering streams.

  7. Sally Bishop says:

    How pretty and how cold … brr. Happy New Year!

  8. Nance says:

    oh yea; this is what we do in Iowa. Southern Iowa or northern Mo . . . we cross and recross those little creeks. And do you say Crick or Creek?

  9. yvonne says:

    Happy New Year, I am a new visitor, love to garden, been in Kansas a few times..
    I lived in Texas, Fla N.C and now the best Maine. Stop over and visit my blog and become a follower .I will do the esame, Yvonne

  10. What a beautiful creek! I love creeks. I used to play in creeks as a child…now my kids play in them as well. I love how that creek is so winding and curving. By the way..do you say creek – like creak..with a long “e” sound, or do you say it like “crick”??? I say crick. That is how my parents said it, so that’s how I grew up saying it. But every once in a while I say “creeeeek” with a long “e”. So how do you say it?

    • Suzanne says:

      Bonnie,
      I say creeeek, but my language is all messed up. I also say arange instead of orange because my mom is from New Jersey. My dad was from Kansas City, and I was born in Florida, but raised in Missouri. So I’m a language wreck. I pronounce words differently depending on different parts of the country. I also like fried grits due to the Florida thing, but grits are all but unheard of here in the midwest. When we were in Mississippi over Christmas we stayed in a B & B in Natchez and the host served grits. I was in 7th heaven. How about you? Does your language or choice of foods differ from those around you?

  11. Suzanne, the only time my choice of food was different from those around me was when my husband and I lived in Seattle for a couple years. There were a few things that they had no idea what I was talking about..for instance..my friends did not know what pierogies were..I grew up on pierogies, and you can buy them in any grocery store in Pennsylvania…but not there! Also, sweet and sour salad dressing by Marzetti’s. That is huge here in PA, but they have no clue what I meant in Seattle…or Florida…couldn’t buy it anywhere! There is no other salad dressing to use on a steak salad topped with french fries..it’s gotta be Sweet and Sour. It’s not the sweet and sour sauce for Chinese food..this is something different. Also, I noticed some of the words that we use here in Pittsburgh..sometimes we call rubber bands, gum bands, and thorn bushes are called jagger bushes..that was definately not what they called them in Seattle. And here’s a funny little story..when I lived in Florida, I was buying donuts and I told the girl behind the counter I wanted the one with the jimmies on it. She said are you from Pittsburgh..I said ya, why? and she said, “cause you said jimmies”…jimmies are sprinkles..and they will always be jimmies to me. It’s so funny the differences! I love it! As far as an accent…well, I may speak just a little bit of what they call “Pittsburghese”. You can look it up on the internet..it’s very well known and we definately have an accent all our own. When I lived in Florida, I could always tell who was vacationing from Pittsburgh by the way they talked. I’ll give you a few examples: down town, we pronounce it dahn tahn..and “did you eat yet” comes out like “jeet yet”. We also say “shore” instead of “sure” (sher) The “shore” thing is usually a dead giveaway. I could really go on and on..it’s so funny! If you actually live in dahn tahn Pittsburgh, your accent is much worse…it’s less and less the further away you live.

    • Suzanne says:

      Hi Bonnie,
      I’ve heard of pierogies, but don’t know what they are. Just like here in NE Kansas there is a bierock, and I’m still not sure what that is. Never heard of the sweet and sour salad dressing, jimmies, or jagger bushes, but I have heard gum bands. I don’t think there’s much of an accent here, but there are funny expressions. LIke if it’s raining really hard, then it’s “raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock”, or if an area of land is prone to flood, people will say that it will flood there if “2 cows pee together at the same time” Seems to be a cow thing running thru the expressions here. And for my husband, the weight for everything is compared to the size of a heifer(young cow). 🙂

  1. December 17, 2014

    […] ——-> LATER THIS WEEK: The meandering Pony Creek […]

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