Bulrushes, watercolour, 2015

Shortly after they bought the farm in 1969, my parents had a pond dug near a spring at the bottom of the hill.  Considering we had no running water or well until 2013, it has been a godsend especially on hot summer days. W.W.E. Ross's poem "The Diver" so aptly describes the experience of swimming in a pond that I couldn't omit a word of it.

Here are the flat green leaves of the reddish brown headed bulrushes at the water's edge along with the light brown sedge that droops gracefully alongside them. Also in August, the flowering purple pickerelweed shown with the text grows in shallow areas along the shore.