There
is a pond on the property. I don’t know what else to call it: too big to be a
puddle but not large enough to call a lake. It is man made by one of the
previous owners. I don’t know how it maintains its water level; a geologist
could explain it, ocean proximity, clay sediment, etc. I noticed it, in the midst of the forest, each time we drove by but I was afraid to pay attention to it. Remember, we
arrived in November, during the bleak mid-winter. The sun went down by 4 pm.
The tree branches surrounding the pond were black and bare, the water itself
was opaque, grey and grim. When the wind blew, the area looked even more eerie.
This wasn’t Jane Austen territory, this was Thomas Hardy at his darkest. Even
the deer stayed away. It creeped me out. When first viewed, the pond was desolate. Pond scum
floated on the surface, dead reeds trimmed the borders and center of the water.
It looked cold, dark and scary; the kind of place that Don Vito would drop
cement shoed bodies. Logically, the area had to be haunted. Why else would it look like a scene from a Poe novel. Baltimore, Poe's home, is not that far away. He could have been here; had a hand in its design. Only missing from the picture were vapors from the
previously deceased and the crows. I didn’t want to have anything to do with its existence,
so I did what lawyers and St. Peter have done since the beginning of time:
deny, deny, deny.
Spring followed winter. Spring. And with spring came bugs and flies and other
nasty flying critters. Naturally, it followed that this pond would be the death
of us. I envisioned mosquitoes the
size of drones targeting our tender pink flesh, forcing us to run into the
deadly water to save ourselves from their bloodthirsty stings. (Poe again, in
one of his diabolical endings. Us, underwater, breathing through those dead
reeds until a bug crawls down and chokes us to death, thereby allowing
us to meet some of Don Vito’s previous victims.) It’s the romantic in me.
I put
out the call to local friends “Please save us; what are we to do?” The answer,
unanimously, was, “do nothing. The frogs will save you.” Frogs? The frogs? What
frogs? While I’m a great fan of garlic fried frog legs, and aside from kissing a
lot of them before finding Scott, live frogs have held no appeal, in any mutation;
big, ugly green things or small, brown bouncy things. However, there it was, do nothing but
wait for the sound of frogs croaking in the twilight. Okay, I guess . . .
. Then, again, it’s spring; flora, fauna, birds singing, sea grass gently bending in the soft ocean breeze. It wasn’t all bad. As we were driving by the
malevolent pond last weekend, heading out for a potluck dinner, I noticed,
what, color? Were there flowers
around the pond? It looked, dare I say it, inviting. Then again, the Lorelei on
the river Styx looked inviting and look what happened to those mortals.
Reluctantly, I realized that a closer look was required, which inspired me to
take the walk to the pond the next day. And a magical transformation had taken
place. The sun dappled water was much more clear, most of the pond was
encircled with yellow and purple irises, and the dead reeds had been replaced
with live green shoots. Even while I stood transfixed by this metamorphosis, I
became aware of plunking noises in the water. Looking carefully at the ground,
I found the area strewn with frogs, big frogs, big, big frogs, bullfrogs, I mean bullfrogs
the size of my head big. A small child could ride one of those darn things.
Heck, one of those darn things could eat a small child. The water looked much
more clear and clean though, and there was no flying wildlife hovering about
the water, so I decided that as long as the frogs continued to do their job,
they could continue to live there, rent free. From the look of things,
including the tiny little tadpoles swimming by the shore, I can imagine a
crystal clear pond and a symphonic ribbit lullaby each evening in the near
future.
The
frogs, though, are not alone on golden pond. While there are no loons, Scott
noticed a duck hanging around the pond recently. He discovered Mrs. Mallard
nesting somewhere near the pond. We were told that we ought to see a lone drake
(Mr. Duck) roosting not far away, guarding the little Mrs. on the nest, while
she kept her eggs warm. I was told she will keep the goslings in the pond until
they grow from golf ball size to softball size, then she will walk them to the
dock and encourage them to fall into the cove, or push them in, as would be my
wont, giving the sink or swim term new meaning, or giving back its original
meaning. The walk from the pond to the dock is long and perilous. Apparently a
good mom will keep them clustered closely together, on the walk and in the
water, so they appear too large for hawks and vultures to swoop down and dine
on them.
As
spring rolls into summer, there will be more events around that pond, I’m sure.
For one thing, Scott purchased a perky full body wading suit from L.L.Bean. Aren't the mental pictures already forming.
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