Water to the Pond

It's a sad fact that for several years, the pond has been dying. The inlet has been choked up with cat tails, brush and mud.

 The spring that should flow to feed the pond seeps into the ground creating a muddy swamp before it reaches the pond. We've thought that someday, we would get a backhoe to come up and dig it out, giving the pond new life. The idea of the pond dying has been bothering Wayne a lot. He doesn't like that each winter we have less area to skate because the cat tails have grown in more. He has heard about how the family used to swim in the pond and he really wants to be able to do that too.  He's been pestering us to go out and work on the inlet for a while now. He figured we could just dig it all out with shovels. So one day this week after school, I decided to go over with him, just so he could experience first hand what an overwhelming job it would be. I thought he would realize that it just couldn't be done with shovels, and that someday we really would need a back hoe to get up here and do the job.

I was wrong.

Wayne wouldn't give up. We worked and worked for hours, into the evening. Wayne did all of the digging and shoveling and I cut brush and cat tails out of the path.

 Where ther was once just a muddy swamp, there is now a flow of water.

 He worked so hard for such a long time. He never admitted to being tired until he was about 20 feet from the pond, but he wouldn't give up. He was determined to see a flow of water to the pond.

The photo above documents the moment that a real flow of water reached the pond for the first time in years. It's not a huge flow, and the job should really still be done with a back hoe, but at least there is a constant, unobstructed flow of water. 

We went back the next day and cleaned out the outlet.