How did my backyard fishpond begin? A friend agreed to help. He took a spray paint can and marked out a bright orange oval on the green grass, about nine by twelve. Then we dug. Only thirty-inches deep, but a lot of dirt for elsewhere. To repay Jeff for the work digging and also installing a rock garden, I sold Jeff my Honda CB 400 motorcycle. A cafe racer—fairing, flat bars, high-performance S & W shocks, Kerker 2-into-1 exhaust, and frame re-painted tomato red. Jeff got the deal. I sold that bike for $1.
Soon I had a still pond, an ecologically balanced water environment resting on a long-lived plastic liner. Water lilies, floating plants, and shubunkin goldfish completed the setup.
The pond made sitting in the backyard a pleasure. And if iced over in winter, the hardy fish didn't seem to mind. Yes, every few years, detritus from trees—mostly hawthorn blossoms--had to be mucked out and the fish temporarily relocated. But on the whole, the pond was mostly trouble-free.
Then the day after Valentine's Day 2021, an ice storm dealt irreversible damage. Ice plus low temperature set loose runaway anaerobic bacteria in that muck. Sucked out oxygen in the water.
Add the Great Blue Heron showing up—twice.
The sixteen fish became three.
A decision was needed.
Pond water was siphoned off, and a four-inch layer of muck revealed itself at bottom. Wearing plastic bags on my feet, I took a box-cutter to that pond liner and removed it. Next I ordered four cubic yards of dirt, delivered.
To move dirt from street to the pit that once had 200 gallons of water, I needed a wheelbarrow. A few days before the scheduled dirt delivery, I saw a wheelbarrow up the street with a FREE sign. Providence spoke. I happily wheeled it home. If the wheel was a bit slant, I paid no mind; the price was right.
With the curbside dirt, I loaded up the wheelbarrow and lifted up the handles. The wheel of the wheelbarrow collapsed flat in the street. I felt like returning the favor to that thoughtful donor.
A neighbor kindly loaned her wheelbarrow and the dirt got moved.
In its place, I have a whiskey barrel containing thirty gallons water with a few water plants and the three goldfish survivors. Pond oxygenation is handled with a solar-powered bubbler and a like-powered filter pump keeps things clean.
The whiskey barrow water feature is surrounded by hydrangeas and other plants in what’s left of the still pond above ground, a circle of stones I originally quarried on Mt. Hood. This is a ring garden.
Image credit: author photo
Read Charlie Dickinson's story collection The Cat at Light's End, as an ebook in these downloadable formats:
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