kern.maxpipekva exceeded, please see tuning(7)

[John DeStefano]

I have seen a mention or two of this error on the lists before,
including this link to the "current" list I pulled up from Google:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2004-January/019150.html

In my case, the errors began after my exploratory two-year-old found
the shiny 'reset' button and could not resist its powers.  I'm also
getting HDD error messages on boot, 'fsck -y' shows all the file
systems as read-only and returns errors on one of them, and I can no
longer SSH into my system (due to, I assume, too many open file
handles), or even get a command in on my console without an error
popping in..

The solution does not seem clear cut to me, and it seems the error
message itself does not provide valid (or, at least, sufficient)
information.

Could someone please help, or point me in the right direction?

Thanks, as always,
John