Time & Effort

When I got home, I visited the woods behind our house. A year earlier a large an underground spring had bubbled to the surface, wearing away the clay.  I had dammed the new creek to form a ‘pond.’

Not wanting to spend money on my pond, I had scoured the hillside for rocks to outline it. The crumbling sandstone made my pond look like a construction site puddle, only smaller and muddier.

Over time, I expanded the puddle from three feet wide to ten.   I broke down and bought water lilies and pond stones.  Scrap lumber became a bench near the edge of the pond.

As I sat listening to the water trickle over the tiny dam, I thought building my pond was a little like recovery. Recovery was messy, time-consuming, and not always pretty at first, not as difficult later, but still requiring maintenance. I was glad I’d put in the time and effort for both.

Today I will put in the time and effort.

Summer with the Slug Rats © 2020 by Ken Montrose

Summer with the Slug Rats is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.

Other works by Ken Montrose are available at: www.greenbriartraining.com https://www.pinterest.com/kenmontrose/mt-rose/