The Pond

About a year after we moved into our house, a path was made that connected our cul-de-sac to 32nd street. The path winds around a pond and past a creek and the whole area even has a name- Elmwood Park. We've never called it that. We just say "The Path" or "The creek" or "The Pond", as these are all different things that allow us to do different activities. Below, you can see a picture of the path. It winds its way up a little rise and comes out between the two houses that are (mostly) centered in the picture below. You can just see the top of our shed to the left of the single story house.

 The path

Tyson and Jori love this path, especially the hill right at the beginning. They go zipping down that hill on bikes and scooters, fast as can be. There are a lot of dog walkers that use the path, so the kids are always eager to make friends with the four legged critters that come walking by our house.

After the hill, the next "attraction" is the sandy hill. I didn't take the kids to climb on the hill very often this year, but last summer was a different story. They'd race up as fast as their little legs could go and then slide down on their backsides, or kind of run down when they were feeling brave. Tyson would stand up and yell "I'm the king of the Jews". He was trying to repeat what I told him to say, but king of the world must not have sounded very exciting to him.

The sandy hill

After the sandy hill is the little pond. The little pond used to be a slightly marshy area, but after a few years of repeated flooding, it has turned into its own little ecosystem.  The little pond is home to thousands and thousands of tadpoles, which later turn into little frogs that infest our street. This is also where the herons prefer to sit and relax and the majority of the ducks choose to hang out.

The little pond with 2 herons-white one in the water, gray one on a log

I already wrote a whole post about the creek, so I'll skip that and get on to the main event-the pond. This summer, our favorite pond activity has been feeding the fish. First, we bike, walk, or scooter our way down the path til we get to the rocks.

 The Rocks

 

 

 

The pond

 Then we pick our way down the rocks, pull out whatever bread we brought along, and start feeding the fish. There are usually quite a few little fish that quickly gobble up the pieces we throw out to them. Every once in a while a bigger fish will make an appearance. Once we even saw a gold fish that someone must have released in the pond. It wasn't a Koi, just an overgrown gold fish!

Jori eating our fish food

Feeding the fish

The kids are especially happy when Darin is around to feed the fish with us. It has turned into a very pleasant Sunday afternoon activity for the whole family.






Today Tyson preferred rock climbing and rock throwing to fish feeding. He even got Jori in on the rock throwing action. The water has really receded a lot over the past few weeks due to a lack of rain, so it was kind of muddy where they were walking. By the time we left, they both had stinky pond mud spattered all over.

Throwing rocks

The rock climber

Hiding out in the tall grass

We are so thankful for all the beautiful creation that God has surrounded us with. Even when the kids were little and we'd take them for walks in the stroller, we pointed out all that God had made and as they grew older, they would see a butterfly, or a flower and say "That is part of God's creation". I am so thankful we have this little oasis pretty much right in our own backyard.