“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.” Dr. Seuss
I know some authors can write all day, every day – but not me. Don’t get me wrong. I have to write! In fact, I can’t go more than a couple of days without writing or doing something for my books. If I don’t write, I get antsy. It’s just that I can’t do it all the time.
I’ve settled into a routine where most mornings I work outdoors (except for rainy days and shopping days). Sometimes I work on clearing or maintaining the trails and roads on the property in my compact track loader (people call them skid steers or bobcats). Other days, I’m cutting trees with my chain saw to clear fallen trees from the trails. Still other days, I’m clearing branches with my loppers or weed whacking the ditches and trails so I can see where the edge is, and I don’t drive over the hill.
But a few days each year, I have to work on the pond below our house. Some of the work is to keep the damn in good shape. But most of the work is to keep it open for the wildlife. Some of our more notable visitors have been:
- The blue herons that wade around the edge, hunting for food. We have to be extra quiet (no opening doors on the side of the house above the pond) and not move because they’re very skittish. One of the interesting things about the herons is that they use our trails when they leave our pond. We can see them winding along, then exiting the trails at the edge of our property.
- We also have egrets, turkeys, ducks, and Canadian Geese visit the pond.
- Then there are our regulars that we’ve gotten to see grow up.
o A year ago, a baby hawk used the pond area to learn how to walk, fly, and hunt. Watching it grow from an awkward adolescent to a mature adult was so cool. What’s really cool are the times we’ve seen it with one claw holding something on the ground and the other lifting up its dinner so it can take bites. It doesn’t come around as often this year, but it still returns to sit on its favorite tree stumps and hunt.
o Today we saw a young doe with its first baby in the pond. We know it’s one we’ve seen before because it’s the only one that frolics in the pond doing pirouettes and racing back and forth in the shallows. It has calmed down some in the last year, but she’s passed on most of her passion for the water to her baby.
But one of the things I do to keep it open for the birds is keeping it clear of intrusive species. The picture below is me after a day of pulling reeds out of the pond. I know reeds do a good job of filtering the water, but they also take over ponds if left unchecked.
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