The Fall was beautiful and my sister and I spent most of every afternoon either working on, or enjoying the place. One interesting thing, although hanging out near bodies of water seems to be the way to contract the West Nile Virus, there are few to no mosquitoes around Mr. Bill's Pond. The Catfish skim the water like whales every morning and the birds feast on whatever gets past them.
The water never really froze over this past Winter, and during the coldest times there were always ducks, two large white birds with long black bills, and the red-winged blackbirds. When it was the coldest and the birds were the least active I cleaned out a boat load of Cat Tails from the West end and we left the rest as shelter for them. By this Spring, there were at least 8 males in permanent residence and they have the pond divided in half, four on each side.