Spring And Summer On The Pond!
Spring soon came, as it always does in Nova Scotia. There was no natural gully or other location to tie up our boat. We didn't really want to build a wharf or any kind of jetty affair, so I decided to dig out a small channel just behind our house. This would allow us to row in close to shore and literally be 2-3 minutes from home.
I started this around the first of May and soon found that I had taken on quite a task. The edges of the pond were marshy and the sods and mud underneath occupied about 4-5 feet deep before there was any solid bottom. I had to dig a "trench" to this depth about 12 feet wide and 30-35 feet in length. This was something I obviously wasn't going to get done in a few days. I enlisted some help from Michael, but shovelling muck while being eaten alive by flies soon discouraged us both. It seemed to us we were undertaking something equivalent to digging the Panama Canal! However, like those who built that the famous canal, we pressed on.
A little progress every evening combined with an extra effort on the weekends paid off and by early July the job was pretty much finished. Here's an example as we were nearly completed. Try to imagine the joy of shovelling mud, roots and sods when the temperature is 33 C (90 F) and the relative humidity is around 90-95% while wearing rubber hip-waders. While I always say the human body has a great capacity to forget pain, I haven't forgotten the heat of the sun beating down on rubber in temperatures above 30 C!
Michael, Kevin and I located some old discarded planks and we used them as a walk way to allow easy access without sinking to our knees in mud. This was all we needed. We soon found that most days one or more of us were on the water. Dusty, our trusty watchdog, was not a swimmer as some of our previous pets had been . . . he simply didn't like to get wet. However, he soon discovered that riding in the bow was his calling in life. He is a natural, barking out orders like a British Naval officer!
Ducks!
The ducks returned in April and within a month or so several families were swimming back and forth. We began to feed them and, although they were wild ducks, within a few weeks they were literally eating out of our hands.
About the time the young ducks were about half grown, we noticed that they became impatient and decided if we were out rowing, there had to be food in the boat. This is just one of a dozen pictures of anywhere between five and fifteen ducklings scrambling to get into the boat and grab a piece of bread. It got to the point where they actually became a nuisance if you just wanted to row around the pond and relax. We soon found that they gave up after five or ten minutes if we didn't feed them. The did have a great memory, however, for come the next day, they'd be back in the boat again as soon as we hit the water.
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Frogs And Other Wildlife
A number of years ago, our pond was heavily populated with frogs. Over the past few years they seemed to have declined in population dramatically. I'm told this is a trend seen all over Nova Scotia and no one is quite sure why. There still are quite a few, as evidenced by the one caught sitting on a Lilly pad below, but not nearly as many as there were 10 years ago.
During the summer we observed, at various times, muskrats, otters, several turtles, an osprey, heron, numerous red-winged blackbirds (and other winged creatures that bird watching enthusiasts could no doubt easily identify.) Unfortunately, these sightings occurred when we did not have our camera, so no pictures can be forthcoming . . . which may be a blessing for those with little patience or slow Internet connections!
As another summer draws to a close, we will soon be taking our boat out of the water and storing it away for another winter. Some scraping, painting and other maintenance is due. That will occupy our time during the fall evenings before the snow flies and the pond freezes over. It then becomes our local skating rink for a few months, but that is another story . . .
Last updated on Thursday, 12 April 2007