The Trickle-Down Effect

What’s on my mind? I’ve always wanted a pond. This week, I got my wish. It took one long day for not-me to dig out the deep-rooted shrubbery and big rocks where the pond is now; another long day to build the pond and its waterfall; one day to landscape it; and another day to stand back and admire it. 

A pond! At last! All we need now is for the ground cover not-me planted to take hold and spread. 

I especially like the pond’s waterfall, which trickles over flat shale stones as a soothing sound. I like soothing sounds. I find them so ... soothing. A few days ago, not-me added a small lily pad (which will grow into a large lily pad and flower), a water hyacinth (which will also flower) and some “green dots.”  

These aren’t your everyday green dots. These are lah-di-dah green dots with some Latinate green-dot name known only to stout ladies in large hats who chair small-town garden society meetings (No offence intended, Florence). 

(None taken, bitch -  F.)

While lily pads, pond hyacinths and green dots are technically considered weeds, they look beautiful and aren’t hard for not-me to control in a small pond. What is hard to control is the three-year-old who toddles over to that same pond to eat lily pads, hyacinths and green dots. Two words: Induce vomiting. One word: HELP!

Do not let an untended three-year-old near your pond. Do not let an untended blankety-blank-year-old near your pond. She won’t lift a finger, but is very good at pointing to tell you where and how to dig, install, and landscape said pond.

Even simple, low-maintenance ground cover needs weeding, so not-me added slate flagstones around the pond, to help access whatever Latinate weeds not-me may find. However …! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW7Op86ox9g

Rising early this morning, I stepped out the door to admire the pond. Our lily pad was gone! Our pond was filthy! Raccoons had been doing the back stroke and having a mud bath in our beautiful pond!

There’s trouble in River City! Oh, we got trouble! And it starts with T and it rhymes with P for ... pond.

Tonight, Himself shook most of a big bottle of Mexican hot sauce on the stones encircling the pond. “That’ll get rid of those raccoons,” he said. “They’re no match for hot sauce!”

“B-b-but …”

“Trust me.” 

Which I do, but if we see them wearing sombreros and joining a mariachi band, we’ll know there really is trouble in River City. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019

The Diet of Worms

What’s on my mind? This is the story of two goldfish, a thunderstorm, and the Diet of Worms - a 500-year-old double entendre that only nerds will get. Nonetheless, this really is about the (lower-case) diet of worms.

Two goldfish entered our lives in the Summer of 2019, thanks to three years of nagging dramatic sighing on my part. Goldfish need a home, and so my long-held dream of a garden pond came to fruition. I promised Himself the pond would cost next-to-nothing, but I’ve never been much good at calculus and abacus and stuff like that so I was off a couple of digits. 

A-ny-hoo, after two garden guys dug, graveled, leveled, lined, rocked, waterfalled, rocked some more, and planted, the pond came in at $3,100 and change. Maybe a couple of hundred dollars in change, but it’s only money, I cheerfully told someone who threatened to moi-duh someone else whose names I’ve repressed. These goldfish are now worth their weight in ... well, gold.

Garden pond goldfish are almost maintenance-free. The woman who ran the watering hole where I bought the fish said: “People who feed pond fish do it for themselves, not the fish. Throw them a Cheerio now and then if you feel like it, but you don’t need to.” So we didn’t. 

A brilliant example of smart marketing: Pets that don’t need feeding (in an outdoor pond, at least).

We named our goldfish Big Fish and Little Fish, mainly because they were. They thrived on mosquito larvae, slime, bacteria, and whatever other other gunk accumulated in the pond. That was last year. This year, everything changed. 

Not knowing the sex of our fish, I read a post on the Mating Habits of Goldfish, hoped for the best, and got it. This past Spring, gelatinous eggs glistened on the underside of the lily pads in our pond, exactly as the Mating Habits of Goldfish post said would happen if a fertile male and a fertile female goldfish became friends with benefits. 

Both fish paid special attention to these eggs, even assuming a vertical position in their eagerness to lap-lap-lap them. I hadn’t progressed far enough into the Mating Habits of Goldfish post to know Big Fish and Little Fish were happily eating their young - not kissing them, as I’d assumed. In the unlikely chance an infant survived egg-hood, its parents’ fishy instincts would again kick in, programming them to eat any fish younger than two weeks. 

After dabbling in cannibalism, the (presumably) remorseful and grieving Big Fish retired to her/his hiding place in the pond, while Little Fish circled the now-lonely waters on her/his own. I think the Mating Habits of Goldfish post had something in there about the Sexual Identification of boy goldfish, girl goldfish, and gefilte fish, but it was too racy for me and I ignored it. Watching Little Fish do the butterfly stroke, we saw she’d grown at least an inch since Winter, so we renamed her/him Semi-Big Fish.

Big Fish stayed in her/his hiding place two long weeks. I worried s/he might be depressed, or worse, might be holding out for another taste of car-r-rne! I also worried s/he might have lost her/his taste for pond gunk and Cheerios. 

Against my Delicate Feminine Instincts, I spaded the garden for a fat, juicy worm. Dropping it into the water, I watched it drift to the bottom of the pond. 

Having never seen such a thing before, Semi-Big Fish lazed toward the worm, upon which Big Fish rocketed from her/his hiding place to snatch the worm and race ’round the pond, the doomed worm trailing from her/his jaws like a streamer, with Semi-Big Fish in cold-blooded pursuit.

“Himself! Come! Come now!” I screamed. (Mrs. H, our neighbor across the way, dropped her dandelion puller and immediately snapped to attention. She, for sure, would have read the racy bits in the Sexual Identification of Fish post.) 

Pedal to the metal, Semi-Big Fish chased Big Fish ’round the pond, but the worm was almost gone. “Gimme a worm! More! More! More!” I  cried. 

(Head tossed back, a light sheen of sweat shone on the eavesdropping Mrs. H's smiling face).

Himself dropped four worms into the pond: Muscling Semi-Big Fish out of the way, Big Fish scored three. Over time, we denuded the garden of worms. “Not good for the soil,” Himself muttered.

“I don’t care about the soil! Our fish are starving!” (The post about the Mating Habits of Goldfish and the Sexual Identification of Fish also had a section on the Feeding Habits of Goldfish. It was there I learned goldfish are gluttons. They’d eat a schnitzel, if they could.)

Over time and a steady diet of worms, we noticed Semi-Big Fish had grown even longer over the past few weeks. Both s/he and Big Fish were becoming heavy weights in the Goldfish Dep’t. How big is big? Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to dunk my arm in that pond. We’ve now renamed them Very Big Fish #1 and Very Big Fish #2. 

Our frantic search for worms has left the garden looking like it’s been savaged by moles. We don’t care. Last night brought a thunderstorm, followed by heavy rain - a godsend! In an effort to escape drowning, about a million worms wriggled onto the driveway and the road. 

Himself scooped up as many as he could: They were about to meet their Waterloo. 

Pavlov, take a bow: Very Big Fish #1 and Very Big Fish #2 now circle at the precise moment Himself bends over the pond, a worm in his fingers. Even after they’re stuffed full of worms, they want more, more, more! (Which would definitely have interested Mrs. H, had she not gone to take a cold shower.)

We’re exhausted. Very Big Fish #1 and Very Big Fish #2 are still growing. They now control our lives. I vaguely wonder if they’d fancy a chunk of pot roast. It’s probably time to rename them, again. We’re leaning to Moby Dick.

© Nicole Parton, 2020

On Golden Pond

What’s on my mind? Garden ponds. I’ve always wanted one. I said the same in The Trickle-Down Effect (June 3), and one month later, I’m still in love with this pond, and will forever be. It isn’t an enormous pond: We don’t have an enormous plot of land. What it is, is a small patch of serenity in our busy lives.

Every morning - rain or sun - one of the first things I do is step outside to hear the gurgle of its waterfall. Some waterfalls “crash.” Some “trickle.” Some wash over stones, polishing them. Our waterfall gurgles. 

The pond and its waterfall make their magic through a hidden pump and the occasional help of a garden hose - and magic, it is. In scarcely a month, the lilies have flourished; the water hyacinth has grown; the duckweed has spread. 

The man who created the pond left us two gifts - the pond itself, and a small painting of a section of our garden. Each of these will forever remind us of the small and gentle things that bring pleasure - the birds visiting our garden, the butterflies floating on the warm air, the bees pollinating whatever they find, wherever they find it. 

The pond is a paradox. Just as it is central to all this activity, it is a place of calm. Allow me to share it, and the artist’s painting, with you.

© Nicole Parton, 2019; painting © Bernie Schrott, 2019

Let Us Prey

What’s on my mind?

AN ORANGE CAT IS STALKING BIRDS. 

PLEASE BELL HIM, OR KEEP HIM IN.

Life isn’t simple. It should be. Life should be rainbows and flowers and unicorns and kittens.  

There’s a new cat in town. A hep cat - a term so old, it’s new again. An orange hep cat - and no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. Our village (that pretends to be a town) is a Trump-Free Zone. 

Having made little posters to alert the neighbors and let the owners know what their cat was up to, I wanted to pin those words to trees and tape them to lamp posts.

No matter how well fed, cats always revert to type - fixating on birds and goldfish bowls. I don’t like asking for trouble, so our pond has no fish. Not only do we have fish-chomping raccoons,  but hungry mink and bears, too. And house cats - let’s not forget house cats.

House cats belong in houses. Not out on the street, extending claws, flexing muscles, licking lips, and hanging around with juvenile delinquent cats, asking for trouble. 

Rarely do we see cats around here. Responsible owners in this semi-rural area keep their cats indoors.

This orange cat must be new to the neighborhood. I’ve seen him twice this past week (Fast fact: 80% of orange tabbies are male). The first time, he was standing in the middle of a quiet street, sizing up the neighborhood, as trouble-makers do. 

The second, he was in our garden. Belly low to the ground, eyes locked on his prey, his clear intent was to play ping pong - his paw, the paddle; our birds, the ball. 

Racing outside, I clapped my hands to scare him off. His response? A cool, insouciant stare and a flick-flick of his tail. As if in slow motion, he easily vaulted our 6 ft. fence. 

He’ll be back. I know it. There’s tender birdies in these parts! 

So I penned a version of the note above - opening with “YOUR” ORANGE CAT … and closing with a snippety “THANK YOU!” Why post these notices widely instead of dropping one at the owner’s door? Why would I write “YOUR” and annoy the whole neighborhood? Because I don’t know whose cat this is, that’s why. 

Why write “THANK YOU!” when the owner might not comply? I may as well have written “OR ELSE!” Where was my proof the cat had come over our fence? Foot-high cat … Six-foot fence … Hardly seems possible, though cats are acrobats. 

I originally wrote OUR birds. This sounded too proprietary - likely to get stuck in some bird’s craw. They are no one’s birds - or, more PC, they are their own birds, responsible for their own lives and decisions: #tweet-too. 

Where was my proof the orange cat was stalking birds? No lifeless, feathered bodies; no terrorized birds cowering in trees.

Who am I to order a pet owner to “PLEASE BELL HIM …”? Maybe the orange cat was a starving stray? Maybe I’d robbed him of breakfast. Which soul has greater moral equivalence - a bird’s or a cat’s? 

Life should be rainbows and flowers and unicorns and kittens. The orange cat was once a cute and fluffy kitten, innocent of the evils of the world. 

I’d maligned this cat. I’d wronged his owner. How dare I! Feeling guilty as hell, I ripped up my poster.

IMPORTANT PS! USA Today reports unbelled cats kill as many as 3.7 billion birds in the continental US every year. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019