My pond has gone through many changes over the years.

When I first bought my house the backyard featured a sewer cover and some rusty, leaning, clothes line posts. There was no back door, so the only way to get to the backyard was to walk all the way around the house.

I took out the clotheslines, and my sister helped me dig a hole and spread the cement to create my first fishpond. We learned that Portland cement can be very caustic.

The fishpond wasn't very deep, and a simple wooden bench sat at the edge, but it was a cool little oasis in what used to be a completely boring yard.

I caught minnows in the river and put them in the pond, and frogs, lizards and other wildlife came on their own to drink the water and live in the plants and rocks surrounding it.

The pond went through many different changes over the years. Some plants flourished for a while then gave way to others.

I added stones to make a patio and a ledge leading down to the pond, and made a bamboo framework to hold up a small bit of shadecloth to cover the sitting area. (You can see the green bamboo at the far left of the photo below.)

I had a door cut into the wall leading from my bedroom to the garden patio, making it easy to step outside and enjoy the garden.

As time went by I kept adding more stones and more shadecloth. In the Florida summertime, shade is a wonderful thing!

Banana trees at the edge of the pond produced small, sweet fruit, and the flowers, water and vegetation attracted all kinds of wildlife from the surrounding woods.

Once I saw the water swirling around vigorously. As I watched, a small otter came out of the pond and looked at me curiously before running away. Another time the dog trapped a poor racoon up a banana tree for most of the night. Possom and armadillo drank at the fishpond, too.

The fishpond grew and changed over many years, but then the hot summers started to get to me. I bought a horse trough and put it in the backyard as a poor-woman's garden tub, but it just didn't do the job. And Judy laughed at me.

I wanted a place to wet down and cool off, so the fishpond underwent a change of life...

Peb's Garden Tub