Exploring the dam....

We are very grateful to have a dam on our property! The irrigation isn't set up yet, but will be one day and it will be a great way of watering the garden and keeping any animals well hydrated.  Since we bought the land, Kristian has had his eye on that thing.  I saw he had bought a pair of goggles a few weeks back and I just knew he wanted to get in there!  I, on the other hand am happy to look at it, admire its beauty and dream of its functionality. The thought of traipsing through those murky waters and not knowing whats underneath or swimming around freaks me out.  Thankfully we have the Bear Grylls of the Mary Valley in our family, AKA Kristian who was eager to explore its miry depths.  You needn't worry people, he took all the safety precautions he could, and by safety precautions I mean, speedo goggles, (only the best here) a pair of crocs from Aldi, a pool stick, and board shorts with sufficient underneath protection, because you know.....eels!  

Cautiously entering the dam.

A little deeper

Girls watching daddy.

It was quite the event of the afternoon with the girls following eagerly behind Kristian as we walked down to the dam.  They were very good at giving their daddy advice from the sidelines....or in our eldest daughters case, throwing huge rocks that almost hit dad.  Obviously, in our eyes, his progress was very slow and we were all cheering him on to go further. So with his pool stick whacking the water every few seconds he delved a little deeper, each step his crocs getting stuck in the sludge. (I wish they would have gotten permanently stuck down there- weird shoe/plastic things)  He felt he had gone sufficiently deep enough after he encountered "something hard" and let out a big yelp!  Call me mean but I thought that it was hilarious, thinking he'd been bitten by an eel or something, but no it was far less amusing as he wasn't sure what it was, just that his arm touched something hard.  I'm pretty sure Bear Grylls wouldn't have gone any further either...yeah definitely not.  We cheered him on again as he made his way out, although we were laughing and saying such things as "ewe" "gross" "look at you" when we noticed he was covered in pond scum.  It's ok though because we have an outdoor shower!!!

Anyway, that's done now, and he can tick it off his list.  He now knows approximately how deep the dam is, that there are lots of reeds in there, squishy mud, and a mysterious 'hard' object.  We do have it on good advice to empty out the dam (use it to water other plants etc) so we can see exactly what is in there, clean it out and wait for the good January rains to help fill it back up.  That way if we want to use it to swim in we can.  I will keep you posted on what we do there.  But for now I'll leave you with a little video. 

https://youtu.be/tS0TO1Dee7s

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Eliza x