Each day I am more astonished at the intrinsic nature (to the plains) that the pond presents. Only eight years old in July it's like an ancient camping ground, or watering hole, for what has now been several generations of a variety of small mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects. I forget that when the work it has required makes me think of it as Bill's big aquarium in the back yard (stare at fish - change the water, clean the rocks, feed the fish, check the air, check the temperature, - stare at fish some more, then do it all over again).
Instead, it lives.