Rising Tides

Remember my pond rebuilding project (click here if you missed that story)?  For a while, it was looking not-so-good.  I know it is because of the drought and the heat and I kept telling myself that I should be glad that it had any water in it at all.  That all sounds good, but it is hard to keep in mind when you're faced with a big, ugly, smelly hole filled with rather nasty looking water every day.  Especially when the terrible heat drives one's dog to swim in it anyway...

However, since the above photo was taken on August 7th, the drought has come to an end here and we have had several big storms that brought considerable rain with them.  With the rain, the water level in the pond has come up nearly five feet...

The water is still full of fine, clay silt and it will be for quite some time, I think it will be Spring at least before the silt settles out.  However, if you can look past it, you can see that the water itself is clear now...

The silt certainly does not bother the masses of frogs who moved back into the pond almost as soon as there was enough water to wet their backs.  They have laid masses of eggs, which are already starting to hatch.  In addition, I've seen at least one of the painted turtles sunning herself on the rocks and last week, Riding Buddy was here, and we both saw a bird visit the pond that neither of us had ever seen before.  It was some kind of Sand Piper we think, but nothing either of us have ever encountered.  I tried to get some photos, but it blended into the clay shore so well that it was nearly invisible.

As for the little salamanders that I am so fond of...a few days after the pond was dug out, I walked around the outside of it.  I saw hundreds of the salamanders and I was upset at first, but then I realized that they weren't dying at all.  They were making their slow way out into the woods and resuming the bright orange coloring of their terrestrial life stage....

A Red Eft - the terrestrial life stage of a North American Newt

It is simply amazing to me how such tiny creatures can survive this kind of upheaval and disruption...

And yet they do.  The pond is not even refilled yet and already, it has more diversity and signs of life than it has ever had.  In the Spring, I will add fish and I look forward to seeing what other sorts of creatures move in to investigate.

May Day

Is it any wonder that the beginning of May has always held a great deal of significance.  It is amazing what a difference a day can make.  I think this year it is especially obvious because we have been having abnormally cold temperatures recently.  Just a few nights ago we had a very hard freeze and there was ice on my pond.  Spring has been slow, the grass not growing.  But last night, just in time, came the warm, May rains and with it, Spring has sprung.  The difference between the woods yesterday and the woods this afternoon is blatant and palpable.  The salamanders especially, have ushered in the full force of Spring.   That big Spotted fellow on my door step last night was just the beginning.  Today, I found more than a dozen of these little Red Efts out in the woods....

I love these little guys, they are just so cute.  They never get much bigger then this....

They have interesting life cycles.  They are born in water and spend their first year there.  Then they crawl out of the ponds and become land creatures.  During this phase of their life cycle, they spend several years crawling around on the forest floor, eating microscopic bugs, hiding under the leaf mold...

And having important discussions...

And perhaps dreaming about the days when they will shed their bright colors and once again return to their aquatic beginnings to lay eggs and live out their days...

The woods are alive with new growth, these little flowers and many others are all over suddenly.  There wasn't one to be found yesterday....

The Trout Lillys are coming up...

The ferns are unfurling...

And the May Apple has popped up...

I told Emma this afternoon, that it would be a good time to have a baby.  It's warm, it's nice, the grass is growing, it's Spring!  She was busy working on her version of a garden and didn't want to hear about any baby nonsense.