A place that influenced me was my grandpa's farm. The time spent at the farm served many life lessons, teachable moments, and childhood memories. Whether it was stocking the pond, hunting for mushrooms in the ravines, or eating turkey around the table at Thanksgiving with relatives, there were many memories made and traditions formed. There were however several memories that stood out.
One of my favorite memories was the building of the pond. The idea of the pond was brought upon by my grandma. When they moved from their subdivision home with a small pond to the new property she wanted a pond like her last house, but bigger. The idea of a pond roughly one hundred times bigger than the previous pond started as casual table talk at desert on Christmas. Initially everybody didn't think anything of the idea until she started calling pond digging companies, getting estimates and researching how deep they would need to dig to hit the clay needed to make the pond waterproof.
That spring she went in for a routine checkup and the doctor found a lump that he said should be cutoff and examined. After the lump was cut off the results came back that the lump was cancerous. They didn’t know how long she had or if it was curable, she just knew she had cancer. At this time, the construction of the pond was slowed due to heavy rain causing thick mud in the "pit" or the hole that was to become the pond.
Early in the summer the construction of the dam was completed leaving the digging to the base of the red earthy clay the only thing left for the construction crew. Meanwhile, my grandma had surgery and learned that the chance to survive the cancer was a fifty-fifty. The pond digging company also gave the pond a fifty-fifty chance of holding water.
The mid-summer days brought more and more frequent visits to the hospital in Iowa City. The pond digging phase was done it was just filling the "pit" left in the ravine that had been hallowed out to give a spacious area for the soon to be pond.
At the start of August the pond had started filling with the scarce rain water that fell to the ground that month. They scheduled another surgery for my grandma to see how the cancer was reacting to the chemo therapy. The results were hopeful as the cancer was retreating.
Later in August, a routine checkup revealed that the cancer was spreading back into areas where it had once been receding. The doctors decided that the best option would to be to start increasing the doses and strength of the therapy. The pond was put on the back burner for the time being.
That fall we lost my grandma and with her the hope to complete the pond before winter. Fall withered away like the leaves turning from green and healthy to dead and colorless. That winter our families became closer than before.
In the early days of spring we had the pond on the back of our minds as we mended the fences that needed to be repaired, chopped up downed trees, and started construction of an additional machine shed. Commented on the algae in the pond as we walked past it going back to lunch. My grandpa got on the computer and looked up an effective method of plant control. He found that a local koi farm had Amur grass carp for sale. Later that month we found ourselves on a gravel road in what seemed like the middle of nowhere with a fifty-five gallon tote and three carp each roughly a foot long. The hope for the pond was returning like the buds on the trees, giving hope of spring like the fish brought hope to the pond.
The pond was left alone after the addition of fish in the spring until the next spring. We started thinking about being able to fish from the pond and be able to keep and eat fish that were caught. That summer we added fifty channel catfish, two hundred and fifty large-mouth bass, and five hundred bluegill. The pond was finally starting to become what was envisioned by my grandma two years earlier.
The pond was in the "growing" stage when the fish were catchable but you couldn't keep them for two years. The first fish we kept was a catfish that had roughly quadrupled in size in less than three years.
The pond was a great addition to the property until one summer when we received very little rain and the level of the pond dropped six feet in two months. The struggle of keeping the warm crowded water oxygenated became a concern. We ran a hose supplying fresh cold water to the pond for the summer until fall came and the water cooled down. Then we had winter brewing like a thunder head on the horizon. When winter arrived we hoped that the fish would be okay and set out to do the other activities that needed to be completed.
The pond and its inhabitants lived to see another day. The pond suffered the same problems as before except we couldn't afford to lose another six feet fortunately, it only dropped another two feet. That year we weren't as worried about the health of the pond. Winter came and went. That spring, as the pond thawed, we noticed several dead fish but nothing scary.
The pond was yet to be in its “prime” of producing eating sized fish and being self-sustaining. The fish were growing and reproducing in the pond and the water level was slowly but surely dropping.
That winter was a cold one. The ice jammed the fish tighter and tighter together in the already oxygen deprived depths where they struggled to live. The pond thawed fairly quickly that spring, but when it did the sight and smell wasn't a pleasant one. We ended up taking out several five gallon buckets of dead fish to the compost pile on the far side of the property and letting the raccoons and other animals have the remainder of the fish.
The pond showed that everything comes to an end and how some things happen no matter what we try to do. We need to embrace the people and things around us because we might not be here much longer. The life cycle is a vicious cycle that provides happiness, grief, and pain.
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One of my favorite memories was the building of the pond. The idea of the pond was brought upon by my grandma. When they moved from their subdivision home with a small pond to the new property she wanted a pond like her last house, but bigger. The idea of a pond roughly one hundred times bigger than the previous pond started as casual table talk at desert on Christmas. Initially everybody didn't think anything of the idea until she started calling pond digging companies, getting estimates and researching how deep they would need to dig to hit the clay needed to make the pond waterproof.
That spring she went in for a routine checkup and the doctor found a lump that he said should be cutoff and examined. After the lump was cut off the results came back that the lump was cancerous. They didn’t know how long she had or if it was curable, she just knew she had cancer. At this time, the construction of the pond was slowed due to heavy rain causing thick mud in the "pit" or the hole that was to become the pond.
Early in the summer the construction of the dam was completed leaving the digging to the base of the red earthy clay the only thing left for the construction crew. Meanwhile, my grandma had surgery and learned that the chance to survive the cancer was a fifty-fifty. The pond digging company also gave the pond a fifty-fifty chance of holding water.
The mid-summer days brought more and more frequent visits to the hospital in Iowa City. The pond digging phase was done it was just filling the "pit" left in the ravine that had been hallowed out to give a spacious area for the soon to be pond.
At the start of August the pond had started filling with the scarce rain water that fell to the ground that month. They scheduled another surgery for my grandma to see how the cancer was reacting to the chemo therapy. The results were hopeful as the cancer was retreating.
Later in August, a routine checkup revealed that the cancer was spreading back into areas where it had once been receding. The doctors decided that the best option would to be to start increasing the doses and strength of the therapy. The pond was put on the back burner for the time being.
That fall we lost my grandma and with her the hope to complete the pond before winter. Fall withered away like the leaves turning from green and healthy to dead and colorless. That winter our families became closer than before.
In the early days of spring we had the pond on the back of our minds as we mended the fences that needed to be repaired, chopped up downed trees, and started construction of an additional machine shed. Commented on the algae in the pond as we walked past it going back to lunch. My grandpa got on the computer and looked up an effective method of plant control. He found that a local koi farm had Amur grass carp for sale. Later that month we found ourselves on a gravel road in what seemed like the middle of nowhere with a fifty-five gallon tote and three carp each roughly a foot long. The hope for the pond was returning like the buds on the trees, giving hope of spring like the fish brought hope to the pond.
The pond was left alone after the addition of fish in the spring until the next spring. We started thinking about being able to fish from the pond and be able to keep and eat fish that were caught. That summer we added fifty channel catfish, two hundred and fifty large-mouth bass, and five hundred bluegill. The pond was finally starting to become what was envisioned by my grandma two years earlier.
The pond was in the "growing" stage when the fish were catchable but you couldn't keep them for two years. The first fish we kept was a catfish that had roughly quadrupled in size in less than three years.
The pond was a great addition to the property until one summer when we received very little rain and the level of the pond dropped six feet in two months. The struggle of keeping the warm crowded water oxygenated became a concern. We ran a hose supplying fresh cold water to the pond for the summer until fall came and the water cooled down. Then we had winter brewing like a thunder head on the horizon. When winter arrived we hoped that the fish would be okay and set out to do the other activities that needed to be completed.
The pond and its inhabitants lived to see another day. The pond suffered the same problems as before except we couldn't afford to lose another six feet fortunately, it only dropped another two feet. That year we weren't as worried about the health of the pond. Winter came and went. That spring, as the pond thawed, we noticed several dead fish but nothing scary.
The pond was yet to be in its “prime” of producing eating sized fish and being self-sustaining. The fish were growing and reproducing in the pond and the water level was slowly but surely dropping.
That winter was a cold one. The ice jammed the fish tighter and tighter together in the already oxygen deprived depths where they struggled to live. The pond thawed fairly quickly that spring, but when it did the sight and smell wasn't a pleasant one. We ended up taking out several five gallon buckets of dead fish to the compost pile on the far side of the property and letting the raccoons and other animals have the remainder of the fish.
The pond showed that everything comes to an end and how some things happen no matter what we try to do. We need to embrace the people and things around us because we might not be here much longer. The life cycle is a vicious cycle that provides happiness, grief, and pain.
Sent from my iPad using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
