Pond Bottoms

I was dredging out the muck at the the bottom of our goldfish pond today.

I had to work carefully since the frog stooges had already set up housekeeping. The pitchfork method I've used in past years was out. Instead I blindly explored the bottom with my hands.

A winter's worth of muck oozed between my fingers. I scooped out dinner plate sized globs of interlocked leaves with green algae trailing like strands of over cooked spaghetti.

It made me think of the pond on my uncle's farm. I hated to go swimming there. Although the center of the pond was clear and clean, it was first necessary to wade through muck that oozed between my toes and sucked at my feet like quicksand.

I was a product of 1960's suburbia - swim clubs with concrete pools and chlorinated water. A pond nurturing cat tails and bullfrogs was no place for human recreation.