There used to be a small bridge on Highway 14—about half a mile south of the Vetter farm—with a sign that said, “BIG BLUE RIVER.”
There is no bridge or sign there now, just a culvert under the highway.
When I lived on the farm during my elementary school years, I was confused by that sign. The bridge was not big, and there was no river—just some standing water from time to time. When I saw a similar sign on a bigger bridge in southeast Nebraska, the river was not blue—it was brown.
We thought of ourselves as Platte River people. We were only a few miles from the Platte, the most prominent river in Nebraska. We recreated there—it was where Grandma and our extended family cooled off on hot summer Sunday afternoons.
It came as a bit of a shock to me when I discovered that our farm was not in the Platte River Watershed, but in the Big Blue Watershed—whose waters reached the Missouri River through the Kansas River.
I find it fascinating to look at watershed maps—they give me a new perspective on a landscape I thought I knew.
Watersheds are a big deal to farmers—and to life itself. When it meandered through prairies, gradually growing larger, the Big Blue River probably was blue. Now, in our area, most folks farm right through what was once its channel. Land has been leveled because grain farmers prefer long, straight rows. What was once labeled Big Blue River doesn’t even become a stream for many miles. When it rains, water runs off quickly, taking topsoil with it to make the river brown instead of blue.
Being at the top of the Big Blue Watershed has made it easier for us to keep from being contaminated by waterborne chemicals and GMO seeds. Not so for some farms seeking organic certification. This clip from “Dreaming of a Vetter World” makes that point.
Only on the southeast corner of our farm do we receive runoff from another farm—and we have had difficulty in certifying that field as USDA organic.
Nurturing soil—nurturing community,
Jay
I love that your grandma brought a stool for sitting in the river. I want to spend the whole summer that way.
As a kid, I remember talking about that sign when we’d drive past—it’s definitely not a big river. And I remember looking at the river from the interstate 80 rest stop near where it crosses the river, and talking about how it also isn’t blue.