Monday, June 2, 2008

A Boy's View of the Ridgewood Reservoir by Joshua Moore (age 12)

It was a beautiful spring day for a nice walk around the reservoir. There were over 60 people there. A few minutes after we started our stroll, Daddy spoke about the Battle of Brooklyn, which was right where we were standing --the Easternmost site. A few minutes later he spoke about the Cypress Hills National Cemetery which is the oldest national cemetery in the U.S., along with Arlington and a few others, dating to 1863 during the Civil War. The whole reservoir was overgrown; most of it was fenced in. The reservoir contains 3 huge basins (about 15 acres each); only the middle basin has water, due to a natural aquifer there.


This is our first time walking around the entire reservoir. It was very exciting, about 1 1/2 miles altogether. We saw the old pump house along the way. It was locked up; so we couldn't go inside. We did peek in though. There was another brick building about 100 yards from the pump house. No one there knew what its purpose was, but our Dad thought it was for storage and pumping, too.

I saw lots of birds, about 6 kinds in all. A bird expert who was there said there were over 15 species of birds. On the gate near the pump house was a caterpillar in a web. I think it was making a cocoon.

We saw lots of friends at the walk, but Shannon, Christopher, and I were the only children. I had a wonderful time.