Water Magic

You may recall that we had our front tank/pond dug out, since it had dried up and it would be easy to remove the silt. It’s now patiently waiting for rain to fall. However, it’s not empty. Apparently it’s filling itself up. Here’s the pond right after it was bulldozed.

Yes, as soon as the digging was over, a puddle appeared. Isn’t that cute, we thought! I went off to Fredericksburg for the first part of this week. When I returned, the pond looked like this:

No, the guy didn’t hit the water line, even though the edges of the pond do look shiny in the morning sun. It’s just clay that was smooshed flat.

Today the pond has enough water in it that anyone would notice it as they drove by. There’s a spring down there, for sure, like we’d been conjecturing. What a magical surprise.

I went over to check it out in person. As barren as it looks, life was there. Pondhawk dragonflies were mating, and neon skimmers were skimming along looking for food, but finding only willow leaves.

As I was taking photos, I looked at the soil I was standing on. When I moved, it made quite the sucking sound. We picked a great place to put a pond, because this place is quite the clay pit. I think my friend Pamela could come get some of it and make me a pot or a tray or something.

I’ll be interested to see how it looks tomorrow. I hope beyond hope that tomorrow will be the last day I can look at the spring water, because there is a promise of rain on Sunday. That would be most welcome. It is very crunchy here and not an easy time for plants and pollinators.