I call it a "pond," but from some of what I've seen here, it barely
qualifies. I guess it started out life as a pond, but by the time I
moved here it had turned into a watery, swampy depression that
previous owners had thrown junk in and had been overgrown by weeds and
saplings and stuff. I got a couple to come out here and while the
husband drove the bulldozer the wife drove this big articulated front
end loader. They spent a few days working and transformed a junk heap
into basically a huge mud puddle. They hauled out an old desk, a
sofa, carpet, a couple of cottonmouths, a bunch of stuff like that.

The soil right here in this part of northern Florida is your classic
"poorly drained" soil that you read about in gardening books. Most of
the time there is considerable rainfall, so the groundwater level
stays quite high. If you dig a hole, it will fill with water. I
noticed this when my brother and I tried to dig a posthole for the
railing for the back porch. About 16 inches down we hit really watery
mud, just about anywhere we dug. I figured if I had any problem it
would be with the pond getting too full.

I was wrong. The past two years we have had very little rain in this
part of Suwannee County. The rest of the county has been pretty dry,
but it has been particularly parched right around here. I've spent
the past year dealing with a surprising lack of water.

I'm not much of a gardener. I figure if I dig a hole and then get the
green side up when I plant things, it's time for a beer and a
celebration. The only plants that last when I care for them are the
true survivors with a strong will to live.

So most of last year the place was mostly a hole in the ground with a
shrinking amount of water, surrounded by dead and dying plants. It
wasn't much to brag about, and wasn't much to look at either. It
wasn't for lack of trying though. For instance, I got me one of those
"follow the hose" self-propelled type sprinklers, which sort of worked
until one day it lost its mind and it wandered down into the pond. But
things are looking up, I have found that I can easily keep three feet
of water in the pond with the garden hose (I'm on a well, it only
costs to run the pump), and water the plants too. I've got a couple
of hundred feet of sprinkler hose laid around the circumference of the
pond so the plants won't croak, and I've got the carcasses of the
plants that didn't make it removed. Some of the plants even made it
from last year, I think they're called perennials, I don't know what
they are called in the metric system.

Any recommendations for fish? They'd have to be strong, quick, hide
real well or reproduce very quickly and often. I've got all kinds of
wading birds here, snakes, alligators, raccoons, all sorts of
predators. I haven't a prayer of using nets or anything like that.
Not sure that I would anyway, to quote my dear departed, sainted
Mother: "All God's children have to eat." The fish would have to be
able to survive on almost anything. If they have to rely on me to
feed them then they are doomed. I guess it wouldn't hurt if they were
cute or pleasing to the eye something, but that is probably too much
to ask.

--
Galen Hekhuis
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