The Art of Leadership

Chapter 21. The Culture Creek

A winter ritual. California. Santa Cruz Mountains. No snow at our altitude, but normally a decent amount of rain that starts sometime around Thanksgiving and sticks around until March or so.

California mountains. In a redwood forest that has been shaped by running water for much longer than there have been humans building things. Building a house in the mountains means considering the land. Is it base rock? Is it clay? How much is it going to move when it shakes? A lot? Okay, then dig deep piers. Fill them with rebar and concrete and you have a solid foundation.

However, there is still water. When I say “water,” you’re probably thinking that stuff you drink. Maybe you’re thinking of a large body of water near you. Maybe there are waves in this water. Maybe not. The water I’m talking about is the stuff that falls from the sky and then runs down the hill. A simple act that over hours, days, months, and years leads to erosion. It’s the water grabbing loose stuff in the ground and bringing it along for a ride. Thanks, gravity.

Over periods of heavy rain, what was solid ground can become so saturated that it turns into a liquid. As a liquid, the former dirt, now mud, has a different relationship with gravity. It’s called a mudslide.

Because we don’t want our mountain homes sliding down the hill, we work to move all running water elsewhere. Roof gutters lead to spouts, which lead to pipes that divert rainwater away from the house. Roads funnel to drains, ...