Image via Wikipedia

I had the luxury of attending the Pond Society Meeting last evening which is always held on the third Monday of the month at Zilker Gardens. We do not have one in December due to the date being in such close proximity to Christmas with most people’s thoughts on things other than ponds and ponding. Generally, we always have some form of refreshments but last evening, we feasted on smoked brisket with all of the trimmings plus all kinds of wonderful deserts. The brisket was cooked by one of our own and was some of the best I have ever tasted. While we were feasting, there was a wonderful slide show of all of the pond pictures taken during the Pond Tour in June. This made for interesting watching as people would nudge one another to point out their ponds as they came up.

The meetings are usually well attended but last evening, several people were missing which meant more good food to eat and as it turns out EVERYONE received a door prize donated by the members themselves of which there were so many that most of us went back for a second time. There were all kinds of interesting items as prizes including some live water plants. I was fortunate enough to get two small lanterns that I will include in the many items that already grace my garden.

There was not too much business to conduct mostly of approving many volunteers for the open positions on the Board. We also spent some time in discussing how to increase not only our membership but also how to broaden our image so that more people know about us. We probably spent 15 minutes on this and then we were entertained by a magician who performed a couple of amazing card tricks. In one of them, he had BJ hold a deck of cards of which he had previously identified a particular card, between her flat hands and then managed to exchange that deck with a piece of plastic about the same size and thickness in front of the whole room. Pretty amazing stuff.

This is an interesting group of people. Some have ponds, other have had them in the past while still others are thinking of building one. Ideas are tossed around and advice is free and willingly given. The people themselves I would say are more of the older retired generations but there are still some younger ones who will continue this wonderful hobby that we all share.

All in all, an evening well spent.