​By: Heather McKean; former Penn State Extension educator
 
Have you ever discussed stormwater with your neighbor or wondered how to be a better stormwater neighbor? Neighbor disputes over stormwater are very common. Water does not follow property boundaries and there are often instances where water flows from one property onto another and causes damage. It is important to realize that activities on your own property can adversely affect your neighbor's property.

​I was reading an article from another paper this morning about rain.  It was singing the praises of rain and how we cannot do without it.  It was talking about how we don’t want to be caught out in it.  It can ruin a good day (if you look at it that way).  You don’t want it to rain while you are watching a parade, or having a cookout, or any number of things.  But, it pointed out that rain is a good thing.  I mean, it is the basis of life!  It grows food and shelter and clothing.  It prevents fires from getting out of control.  (I have heard that at the end of last week, the brush fires started.)  Imagine if we had no rain.  The landscape would be a boring as the Sahara Desert.  And wildlife- if you want to see some wildlife, head for your nearest area of surface water (pond, stream, etc.).  There will be wildlife there, I am sure.  Rain is a great thing, and places in the west fight over who is going to get that water when it comes down the stream.  They don’t have enough to do what they want to do (live, wash, grow crops, water lawns, etc.).  We need moisture, but sun always steals the show.  After reading the article I was going to write one of my own, expanding on this topic.  However, as I thought of all the good things, I started to add up all the bad things about it- floods, erosion, drowning, supports mold growth, rots things, changes streams over time (usually to places we don’t want it to go), shrinks things, and the list goes on.  I am sure you can come up with a number of things on your own.  I then contemplated that my article should be about all the bad things associated with rain.  We have all experienced those things in the last 6 years.  Then I thought, how could something so good, also be so bad?  Are there other things that way?  And my mind started to drift.  Is it really all about perspective? 

by Ryan Reed
A reprint from Forest Fridays, a DCNR publication
 
If you’re an avid outdoors person, chances are that you have heard the sound before. Let’s just say the sound can be very unsettling. This hair-raising, goosebumps-inducing noise will certainly get one’s attention, and can be heard during this period of the late winter season when everything else can seem dead silent.