Shalom Y'all,
A brief update. We're all fine, though there's still a sense of mourning and shock. On the other hand, the entire country has drawn together in ways I haven't seen in years. Two weeks ago, we had hundreds of thousands demonstrating every Saturday night against our (admittedly inept) government's attempt to weaken the judiciary. Now, the leaders of the protest movement are among those coordinating supplies to soldiers and civilians alike. Calls have gone out to find places to host hundreds of thousands of people who've had to evacuate border towns. Most of those displaced found families willing to host them within an hour. Hotels have turned over all their rooms to evacuees, and every town in Israel has collected food, clothing, and other necessities for those who had to leave their homes quickly.
There's also the usual dark humor that keeps everyone going at a time like this.
Back to the topic I think we can all be glad that
@YShahar has an oasis in their backyard to bring some calm and peace in these times. We can all probably relate that looking at our ponds can be a great stress reliever and we can all be happy that we help each other out in bringing that peace to people's backyards.
How very right you are! The pond has been the best therapy I could wish for (save for peace breaking out - which isn't likely to happen). But the pond actually set up a stressful, and downright comical, situation for me late last night. To set the scene: I've got my main flex pipe going straight to the stream head, where it pours into a pocket of the liner and creates an upper pool. Eventually, this pool will be right under the cascade coming out of the bog. But for now, there's just the pipe spewing water against the fold in the liner. Got the picture? Good!
So on this night in the middle of a war, with planes flying overhead completely blacked out, and distant rumblings of artillery, I was sitting at my upstairs window listening to the peaceful sound of the waterfall, punctuated occasionally by the distant thud of rocket interceptions. The time was 1:30 am. Suddenly I noticed a change in the sound of the water. It sounded as if water was splashing somewhere
other than in the upper pool.
"Oh great", I thought to myself, "I bet we've had another porcupine incursion." I remembered that we'd left the porcupine barrier down while working on the bog on Friday, and likely enough, a porcupine drinking from the stream had dug the pipe out from where it was supposed to go. My worry was that if the pipe had been shifted too much, it could be spewing water out of the stream altogether, which would eventually empty the pond (at least down to bottom of the intake bay weir). So there was nothing for it but to go out into the night and see what was happening.
And so it came to pass that at 1:32 am, trying not to wake up His Honor the Chef, I slip downstairs and very quietly open the padlock to the bars enclosing the sliding porch door. And, good citizen that I am, I'm fully weaponed up, as directed by the Homefront Command. As I set foot on the garden path, I realize that if HHTC happened to hear the lock downstairs, he may have woken up rather alarmed. And if he hears my feet crunching on the gravel path, he's going to think there's an intruder. So I go into stealth mode. At this point I can't help but laugh because I realize that now, anyone looking out the upstairs window is going to see someone all weaponed up, sneaking around beneath the trees trying not to make noise.
Well, in the end, I got up to the stream, found that the pipe had not in fact shifted, but I added some rocks around it, just in case. As I crept stealthily back down the garden path, I congratulated myself for not causing a friendly fire incident in my back yard.
It was at that point that my foot landed on a giant ground snail. "Snap!" The shell collapsing sounded like a .22 going off at close range! So much for stealth. I quickly got the bars locked up again, closed the door, and made my way upstairs, taking pains to talk loudly to the cat on the stair landing, just in case HHTC was now crouched by the door in anticipation of a Hamas invasion.
Turns out he'd slept soundly through the whole operation. So yeah, ponds can be great therapy... so long as they're used only as directed!