Our little tiny spring has been enlarged and deepened three times. It turned out so well, supplying all of our irrigation water for the orchard, berry patch, and garden that we are going to dig it deeper and enlarge it a little, grading the banks to a gentle slope. When that’s all done, we will be spreading composted manure over the gravel and totally naturalizing our little pond to make it look like it has been there for years and years. Not only will we be able to irrigate from it but it’ll be a pretty spot to view from the house or sit beside during the summer months. It’s even got fish in it now! Somehow we’ve gotten minnows in it where no fish existed before. Maybe spawning sunfish swam upstream during a heavy rain, through the overflow canal, from our pond? We don’t know but it’s neat that our pond is evolving.

While Will was working with Old Yeller, grading the gravel back from the pond (which we’ll use on our driveway and other strategic locations), I found some tiny blooming violets. How nice to see their happy faces! I have been cleaning up the garden and the area around our goldfish ponds, getting ready for growing season to begin there.

On a sad note, Dad’s last car, our faithful Taurus station wagon, has passed on. It’s got too many expensive problems to fix. So we’re looking for a new-to-us, good, smaller station-wagon-type car that we can afford. With new vehicles priced so high, used car values have remained very high also. I sure needed that little violet!

4 COMMENTS

  1. Oh, Jackie! You and Will seem to make the perfect couple. In your first photos of him, he didn’t have quite the smile that he does now. More of a bashful look. His smile is almost as big as a Texas grin runnng from ear to ear now. Your happy homesteading life together surely shines. I enjoy all your blogs and all your happy photos! Thank you very much.

  2. Jackie, does the MN. DNR let you enlarge a natural body of water like that? We have to be careful here on how much brush clearing and changing we do to our creek so as not to be noticed by the MI. DNR. We can get in alot of legal trouble if it is discovered by a conservation officer (or an overhead plane) that we ‘improved’ the stream or surrounding wetland areas, even though its on our private property.
    I have areas that I’d love to dredge out and widen…but have to be cautious.

  4. Jackie,

    I have heard that when the sun evaporates the waters, that sometimes it brings up fish eggs and baby fishes. That may explain why the fish showed up in your pond.

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