Memories/The Pond

This is the bell that used to hang in my grandparents garden that my parents now have. When we lived in our other house, they mounted it to the deck and would ring it so David and I knew we had to come home for dinner, a phone-call, etc.

There is no way to describe what this picture means to me. It is the only picture I have of My Pond. It is a bad picture, and hard to even tell what it is. But this picture brings so many memories to mind. I call it My Pond, but it was in no way mine. My grandfather, Charles DeGraffenried built this pond for irrigation to water the surrounding peach and nectarine orchard. I didn't even know this place existed until we built a house just yards from it next to my cousins house on the west side of Santaquin. There were dirt roads, orchards, sage brush, and fields....it was heaven. I spent countless hours here thinking, exploring, catching things, and just enjoying my time there. It was my secret place, but not so secret, because everyone knew where to look if they couldn't find me.

Some memories....mostly including my brother, David:

-Riding around in the metal canoe with old buckets trying to catch the big salamanders that were only found in the deepest part of the water.

-Seeing a crawdad (crayfish) emerging from under the cement slab that had to have been at least a foot long. We thought it was a lobster, it was so big. I couldn't stop screaming in excitement and horror.

-Coming to the pond and discovering that all the tadpoles had been transformed into toads that were about the size of a dime and he sheer exhilaration I felt running back to the house for buckets.

-Finding the two Western Chorus Frogs at the pond and observing them for weeks. While toads are common in Utah, frogs are not, because of the dry climate. I remember sitting motionless for hours observing them and taking notes.

-Wading around in the water and swimming in it to find the big salamanders and toads and coming out with leaches on my legs and that sick feeling I felt in my stomach when I realized what they were.

-Ruining absolutely every single pair of shoes I had walking in the mud to get close to the water. I was always washing my shoes out and setting them in the sun to dry so I could use them again. I had two pairs of designated "pond shoes".

-Going to the pond in the middle of the night with my best friend, Kris, out on the canoe. We took our flashlights out there and paddled to the center of the pond. It was so dark, and scary. We started imagining what we would do if some monster, or other scary thing were moving in the bushes and starting wading through the water to get us. Would we try to paddle away? Jump in the water? We loved to scare ourselves like that:)

-Using the oars for the canoe to twist in the moss and throw it out of the pond. In the summer months it would get so thick, it was hard to maneuver the canoe and see things in the water.