August 6, 2007 – Hot, sticky. Robbin Slater is the maestro of hydrologists, who not only understands earth, rocks and water water, and dramatically choreographs where water goes, and what can be done about it. It is time to take on my driveway and back pasture, which, in the spring, becomes an icy and treacherous bog it is worth your life to get across. I fall so often that Rose waits for it, then nips my ear until I get up.
  Robbin has a plan to help. Below, he shows me where the water will now go, and below that, his master plan for digging it up and making it right. Robbin gives the best and most theatrical presentations of any excavator I know, and his descriptions of the life and dreams of water are worth the price of admission alone.
  This project will involve many tractors and big trucks, and new ditches, and trenches, and mats and culverts and packed stones and ditches. Hang on. It will also mean trying to write while the ground shakes, something that happened with Anthony for years before he got into the concrete countertop business. I bet I  have produced as many words around big tractor noise as any writer alive. My computer needs a stabilizer.

Robbin as Excavation Impressario

Robbin’s plan for diverting water and ice and saving the farm driveway from being
flooded away, as it nearly was last year.