Victoria's Real Secret

I confess. I have a reoccurring fantasy. Like all good English teachers, the fantasy is mythological in nature. It concerns a heroine, a hero, and an impossible task. My Herculean task was to create a working garden fountain for under ten dollars. Having acquired a plastic liner,an entire box load of spaghetti like tubing,two ancient pumps and some colander looking items at a garage sale for exactly ten dollars, I set out to create the magic water feature. Guess what? Forty years dealing with the power and the glory of the semi-colon in no way prepared me for assembling a workable water feature. Enter, the HERO, and not just any hero, but my favorite nature author Bill Belleville, writer of River of Lakes, the lyrical volume that gave me a new vision of the St. Johns River. Bill sat down on the hot pavement, went through the spaghetti mass of tubes and isolated the only working pump. Not my average morning.

Just as the Patience Gives Out

According to assorted gurus, gardening is supposed to inculcate many of the skills needed for success in real ( not reel) life: careful attention, flexibility, patience etc. Just as my patience became as cracked as my stepping stone because of Tropical Storm Debbie's depredations, Mother Nature provides a gift. Actually, not Mother Nature, but a neighbor wearing a battered Gator hat and chain smoking Marlboros.The gift was a garage sale pond liner, four pumps, pond netting, a blue piece of brain coral AND a plastic castle. Total cost $10. Tomorrow at dawn, I shall sink the liner which I have already tested for water tightness and create my pond. The four pumps are a little off putting for someone whose pump wisdom relates only to breasts, but I have confidence that I can figure it out. Maybe??