A pond story

 

Last year we put together a small water feature outside our living room window (you can read about that here). I thought it would be pretty, and that we would enjoy the soothing sounds of trickling water, both outside and, when we could open windows, inside.

But it has been so much more.

Last week my daughter called me to come look at something. I was halfway up the stairs toting the vacuum cleaner (why is that invariably when someone calls for you?). Somewhat grumpily, I set the vacuum cleaner down on the landing and trudged back down to my daughter, who was pointing out the window at the new pond.

“Look, it’s the snake,” she said.

Sure enough, a checkered garter snake was swimming in the pond.  We have seen this non-venomous snake in this area many times (see Just a member of the family).

Grumpiness be gone.

We watched him as he swam around. Soon he began writhing under the water splashing into the pond from the water spigot. He did this several times – at first we thought he was trapped under it, but soon we concluded he was doing this because it felt good.

The goldfish were also swimming about, no doubt watching him warily. We decided this was a different, smaller snake than we’ve seen here before, and that the goldfish are big enough to be safe. My daughter was concerned, however, about the small leopard frog who also lives in the pond.

Bees drink from this pond all day long, gathering on the edge in a cluster, and then flying off to their work. One day my daughter told me she had touched a bee on its back – how cool is that.  I wondered if this snake might eat bees.

My nature lover daughter could only watch from afar for so long, and then she headed outside. Mr. Snake watched her draw near, and then beat a hasty retreat to the rock pile in the corner.

When I swung by the window 15 minutes later, he was back, swimming around, resting his head on the rock or edge of the pond, writhing under the waterfall.

Meanwhile, a female painted bunting came fluttering by for the drink. I stood still, thinking, “Watch out for the snake, little bird!” Instead of perching on the rock to get a drink, where she would be within the snake’s reach, she lit on the water spigot about a foot above the pond. I watched her lean over to snatch drops of water from the spigot’s spout. Smart bunting.

I decided two things about the little snake:  it was hungry and it was hot. The pond took care of both of his problems, apparently.

We’ve not seen him since. Nor have we seen the little frog.

Favorite spot in the garden:

Several years ago my friend Lona gave me some  phlox after I admired her very healthy stand. I planted them in the wrong place, with too much shade. They did not thrive. After three years or so, I figured out the problem. I moved them over about three feet to a sunnier location. This spring, they are putting on quite a show for me, and I “ooh” and “ah” every time I walk by. Garden success!

You just can't rush these things . . .

This weekend, thanks to my husband, we finished a long-term project.

Several years ago, Dan bought a fountain pump and peripheral equipment for my birthday. However, my original plan for its placement required still more peripheral equipment – a longer cord. Six months passed before I obtained said cord.

Before . . .

Now the job had turned into a big, complicated electrical one. These types of jobs require lots of planning, perhaps an environmental study or permit.  Maybe it would require the blessing of a uniformed officer of the electrical code.

Six more months went by, with the equipment residing on the laundry room counter.

Then came a Eureka moment:  I should put a pond right outside my living room window in a bed still to be developed! This would be much closer to the house, ergo closer to the electrical outlet thereby simplifying the job.  I rushed out to buy the pond, lugged it home and set it in place.

Six months passed. The pond collected water from roof run-off and became home to some minnows, dead bugs, an occasional waterlogged toad and green pond sediment.

Look, I even used tools!

In early spring, something moved inside my soul. I knew it was time for the next step in this project. My husband finished moving rocks. I moved dirt and plants to surround the pond. Now, it was a flowerbed! A flowerbed with a pond! Maybe now . . .

No. Six more months elapsed. The plants grew, the minnows swam, but alas, the sound of tinkling water did not fill the air.

Sometime during this period, I saw a cool idea on Pam Penick's Digging. She had visited another gardener and seen her fountain, and then copied the idea for her own garden. These two gardeners had rigged a fountain to run water through a hose bib. I found a discarded hose bib and decided to follow in their footsteps (the sincerest form of flattery, right?).

Labor Day weekend arrived. While discussing what projects we could undertake, I suggested that perhaps my dear husband could get the fountain up and running. I pulled up Pam’s page to show him how her husband had managed this engineering feat.

My husband hemmed and hawed, then struck out for the hardware store. Like Pam and Cat, he bought metal plumbing pipe and elbow joints. He assembled the pieces of pipe and set the unit in a one-gallon plastic plant pot, then mixed some concrete and poured it in. The bottom of the pipe stuck out the side of the pot/concrete. When the concrete was dry, he cut off the pot, connected plastic tubing from the pump to the bottom of the pipe, and set all in the pond. He did a little hocus pocus electrical work, and then plugged in the whole apparatus. Water began splashing gaily into the pond! Hurrah!

This little fella was in the
pot I moved - the first new
resident of our revamped pond!

I placed a sad little water plant from the other pond beside the concrete block – I’m hoping the cooler water and shade will provide it a better home. Four big beautiful goldfish now populate this more upscale pond.  

Now we are eager for cooler weather so we can open the windows and hear the soothing sound of water splashing right outside.

. . . and after! The bed is home to Turk's cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii),
heart-leaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata) and a white potato vine (Solanum jasminoides).

Squeamish? Read no further . . .

Living in the country is not for the squeamish.

Here on the hill, our water comes from a hole in the ground, a.k.a. a well. Rainfall – or lack thereof – is a constant concern. Our well held out over the summer, but we know the supply is limited.

We try to conserve water in a variety of ways. Have you heard the expression, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down”?  Those on wells in drought-prone areas have.

Not for the squeamish.

Occasionally, we outpace the well’s ability to refill, despite our best conservation efforts. Several years ago our local well guru installed a mechanism to shut off the pump when no water is available, and turn it on again 30 minutes later. Occasionally we trip that shut-off.

About midway through December, I got careless and cleaned two bathrooms consecutively. The pump shut off. No problem, right? Just wait 30 minutes.

But this time, the refill took a few days, with the pump shutting off repeatedly. Even when the  pump was on, the water pressure was low in certain faucets. Husband Dan was puzzled; when you’re on a well you either have pressure or you don’t (unless you are running water somewhere else, which we weren’t). The well was refilling at a much slower pace, but why the low pressure?

I called the well guru (“Oh wise well guru, come to our aid in this time of duress”). He determined that we had, indeed, run the well dry. He suggested that we walk three times around the well head, pausing each time to sprinkle herb de Provence and sea salt over the top. Then the entire family should join hands in a circle around the wellhead and pray to Poseidon for life-giving liquid.

Alternately, he recommended installing a 2,500-gallon holding tank, so the well could pump at a more leisurely pace. Also, the tank could hold trucked-in water, should the well go dry. Many of our neighbors have these.

As it was two weeks before Christmas, I voted for the first option; my family refused to cooperate. We are still considering the second proposal.

A week later, my husband stood fuming in the shower under a teeny trickle of water, trying to understand this situation. Why was the water pressure so low? He got out, dried off, and unscrewed the shower head . . . and found a clump of dead ants.

Ants, full of ANTagonism toward humans. They are not thirsty now
with all the recent rain. In fact, their mounds have flooded down below
so they have pushed them above ground.

He roamed the house, unscrewing other slow faucets. They were likewise clogged with ant carcasses. This included the kitchen faucet.

Are you feeling squeamish now?

My theory: In the drought, the ants were desperately thirsty. They crawled down into the well seeking water. Some fell in and drowned – over time, lots of them. When I ran the well dry, the water level dropped to the pump, and the dead ant bodies floating on the surface of the water were sucked into our system.

We consoled ourselves with the fact that these ANTibodies might protect us from the fire ant ANTigens we encounter. Maybe we have received ANTivenin for ant bites, or perhaps it will just serve as an ANTidote to their stings. Either way, this incident did reinforce the ANTipathy we already felt for fire ants.

Was this disgusting? Oh, yes. But we survived. I guess we're not too squeamish for the country.

Favorite spot in the garden:

Actually, this spot is on my kitchen windowsill. My mother-in-law brought some sprigs of flowering quince from her garden. When I stand at the sink and try to look out the window, my eyes are drawn instead to these lovely blooms. They seem somehow Asian – simple, lovely. In her garden, this looks much redder. On my mustard windowsill in fluorescent light, it became salmon-hued. It's lovely no matter the setting!