Our Pond...or Should We Just Call It An Oversized Puddle? The Past 3 years...

When we moved here in September 2004, our pond (it sits on a 4 acre parcel of land, we figure it must be about an acre and a half in size) was relatively full of water, catfish and other finned creatures. Because this pond sits amid the woods in rural southern Georgia it is the watering hole for many, many critters--bobcat, deer, fox, snake, armadillo, rabbit, turkey, heron, and lots of other birds and animals. It has been fun trying to identify the many different tracks we find in the soil. Summertime is the wet season with afternoon thunderstorms and torrential downpours. The pond fills from the runoff of surrounding homes and plantations. We have taken the flowing water for granted--just expecting and thinking that the pond would remain full for the numerous fish and turtles inhabiting it. Note the height of the trees surrounding it---they have grown a lot over the past 3 years!

March 2005 - we are all standing on the dock, getting ready to fish. The pond was comfortably full and the fish were abundant.

Stefanie's first fish!

But this was the beginning of many upcoming changes to this pond...

In the Summer of 2005 we had heavy rains that contributed to a lot of flooding in the area (I'll post pictures of the flooding around our house in the future). The pond was at a record height.

You can tell how high the water was as you look at the dock. Unfortunately many of the pine trees that were subject to the flooding were beginning to die.

In October of 2006, we noted that the pond was beginning to show signs of shrinking due to the lack of adequate rains during the summer of 2006. Since one side of the pond was nothing but an erroded ridge, we borrowed a friend's backhoe and began the process of reshaping the pond. The pond edge ended up beautifully terraced. We thought the terracing would make it nicer to fish....unfortunately, we have yet to try it. The shrinking continued as the drought of the region progressed.

In June 2007 we knew our pond was in trouble. The water was nearly gone except for the one deep 8 ft diameter hole---it only had 2-3 feet of water at its deepest point. Our catfish were beginning to die from the reduced area and the low oxygen. In the second picture, I am standing in what used to about the middle of a water filled pond. Dave put up a measuring stick so we can monitor the status of the pond. The next picture shows how much the water has dropped from the dock. Our paddle boat sits unused.

These are the prints of all the birds that came to partake not only of the water, but of the remains of the catfish. We tried not to remove the dead fish knowing that the creatures were probably hungry and thirsty from the drought.

Our saddest site: dead catfish everywhere! There were over 50 carcasses at one time. Note the cracking of the earth near the top of the picture. This drought has been tough.

Thankfully, we have had a couple of storms that have helped to revive our pond. You can see that much of what used to be pond is now thick with grasses. These are pictures taken last Sunday, September 2nd. Once we know that the pond is going to continue to refill, we'll probably re-stock it with fish. But, unfortunately, this summer has not given us the water needed to keep this pond going throughout the next year. Once hurricane season is over in November, we will enter the dry season. To date, no further rain in the forecast! Please help us pray for rain for this region.