The Nature Pages from OUTRIDER

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	The Pond Lovers  by Gene Logsdon  University of Georgia Press, 2003
	From his Ohio farm in Upper Sandusky, Gene Logsdon writes lovingly of ponds and the people who adore them. His affections are focused not on wild lakes or water holes, but on backyard and pasture ponds that slow erosion, recharge groundwater, provide habitat for waterfowl and recreation for humans.
	Logsdon says he started to write this book as sort of instructional manual, but turned instead to describing pond-loving people and their relationships to their ponds. This includes his father and several close neighbors, as well as his personal experience with the pond he constructed and maintains on his own land.		Once I put a bluntnose minnow from the creek in the pond. A bass gave chase immediately. The poor little minnow launched itself completely out of the weater in trying to escape, and when it came back down, the bass was there to swallow it. So far I have not seen a snapping turtle in the pond but am sure some will come when the proper food supply occurs. Snapper meat is a great delicacy.
	"To appreciate the full worth of a pasture pond, I visualize it as part of the extended environment of the farm, which -- with the creek running through the lower pastures, the two vernal pools in the upper and lower woods, and the second pond I hope to build between the first one and the creek -- becomes a watery balance to the meadows and woods," Logsdon explains. "Such a farm can only continue to increase in self-sustaining animal and plant species, powered and operated almost totally by the sun. Here is all the paradise I desire, all the paradise I need."
Nature Writing and Natural Histories