Gillespie Creek is a website for readers who wonder what it might be like to cut back on contemporary consumption…to learn to live more reciprocally within their natural surroundings.
Here is a brief history of Gillespie Creek and the 80 acre watershed surrounding the waterway.
A county plat map hints at the source of Gillespie Creek. It’s a noticeable stream gradually carving a path northward from a landlocked source a few miles south of here. A placid fresh water spring as I imagine it. Throughout our half-century relationship, Gillespie Creek has flowed onto our property under the south east fence line. Gillespie has always been a vigorous stream. With heavy rains it has ballooned the adjoining lowland Birch and Aspen bordered meadow into a sizable pond. Working skillfully with a plentiful food supply beaver successfully enlarged it with a quarter mile long dam. Osprey nested and fledged their young from a stick-built nest high in a dying Oak tree on the shore. The tops of three dozen Aspen and Birch proudly played host to a rookery of Great Blue Herons. Over the ensuing two decades food sources declined. A rapid spring thaw breached the dike. The lake dried up. A lush meadow now covers the remaining marsh with chest high grasses. Gillespie Creek stubbornly maintains its course snaking a pathway south to north through our property. 
Roots of ancient White Pine, Oak, and Paper Birch trees seed themselves, stand and fall at its watershed borders. The ecosystem created by the water, shade, and shelter host deer, porcupine, beaver, fox, bear, frogs, and toads. Seeds brought along on their visits plant and grow. A progression of native perennial and annual flower gardens bloom in the Nature restored meadow. Grasses frame the wetlands. Dragonflies, moths, butterflies, bees, mosquitos, and wood ticks flourish.