The stealthy cat

There is a pond outside our back gate. It's a small pond, man-made, and ostensibly serves as a reserve in case of fire. In this time of drought, the pond is slowly evaporating. This happened a number of years ago during a similar long dry spell. The town reacted by trucking water up from the river to replenish the pond. With the river water came an invasive weed that takes over and chokes the pond. But it has pretty yellow flowers.

Here's Bertie walking around the pond. Callie heard him meowing, but hadn't seen him yet.

This weed is everywhere in our region. It's called jussie or ludwigia, and we saw something about it on television recently. In a nearby wildlife preserve, one of the big ponds (or lakes) was choking with this weed. The authorities drained the pond completely (saving the fish by moving them to a new home) and burned the weed out. This process took nearly a whole season.

I'm sure that our town will not be doing this with our pond. The weed dies back in winter, but flourishes in summer, nearly covering the whole of the water's surface. Still, our little pond is full of life. It is home to frogs and fish. I've actually seen people fishing the pond, although what they catch is little more than bait-sized.

On Thursday morning, while returning from my walk with Callie, I noticed Bertie at water's edge. I wonder if he was fishing? Callie usually goes around the pond to the north through the grape vines, while I stay on the dirt road to the south; she waits for me at our back gate. Bertie saw me and started to come toward me. Callie stood by the gate and watched. Bert was meowing and came through the wire fence so that I could pet him. Callie didn't move. That really surprised me because she usually wants to chase the cat. Maybe it was because I was petting him and that calmed her down a bit.

Just before Bertie got to where I was, I was able to get the camera turned on and snap this picture.