In the winter it becomes a torrent, a mean little fierce river, and in summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in...

...Frogs blink from its banks and the deep ferns grow beside it.   Deer and foxes come to drink from it, secretly in the morning and evening, and now and then a mountain lion crouched flat laps its water...The quail call beside it and the wild doves come whistling in at dusk.  Raccoons pace at its edges looking for frogs.  It's everything a river should be.

- John Steinbeck, Cannery Row