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It All Started with a Goldfish
I outgrew the basin, outgrew my room, went to college, got married, moved away, raised a family, and thirty-some years later, I was once again building water gardens in my mountain paradise. Meantime, my parents were retired, and built a little pond and waterfall in the backyard where the quince tree used to be, surrounded by flowers and a hundred frogs balanced on their lily pads. It must be in our DNA, this attraction to water gardens.
I’ve left my mountain home with the 90-foot waterfall I built hauling rocks from construction sites, a trickling stream which turned into a double one because I screwed it up, a teeny tiny waterfall under a wooden bridge I had to have in order to watch the water fall into a little pond I dug, at least two whiskey barrel gardens, I can’t remember what else. There were others.
As it turns out, all the hype about these “natural” gardens are a lot of baloney. They are not maintenance-free. I was worn out. In the last year or so I filled some in and let them deteriorate. When we moved to Edenton, water gardening, maybe all gardening, was behind me. I would live a quiet life in town and write my books in obscurity. No sun on this wrinkling gardener’s face anymore! I’d walk Buddy and wear a hat.
The good thing about plans is, they can always change. My love of digging, which I get from my mom, took me out to the backyard where my love of gardening showed its true colors. I stare at an area until I can see what it should look like, then I dig. One of the areas, as it began to take shape in my mind required a whiskey barrel. “No!” I said. “Water garden!” the earth replied.
So, it started with a goldfish. Two goldfish, actually, but one has already died. The other is patiently waiting in a bowl in the kitchen while the water in the whiskey barrel slowly warms. The plan is for him to eat mosquitoes. My little pump is spewing water and making a delightful sound. And here I go again. One big difference though: there are no hills nor rocks here. There will be no waterfalls, and only one whiskey barrel. Lowe’s has good ones, if you need to know that.