Due to the dry weather we’ve been having in the Midsouth, like the Mississippi River, my pond is getting lower. Also like on the Mississippi, things are emerging – sunken logs, tossed away beverage containers and old construction throw-aways.

Over the last few years, we’ve cultivated a very healthy environment in my pond for bluegill, catfish and quite a few cooters. It sits along an access road to several of our neighbors’ homes.

We are seldom bothered by the neighbors, but wave as they drive on by.

One day, I caught a neighbor throwing something into the pond. He said he had found a turtle crossing the road and didn’t want it to get run over so he brought it to the pond and released it. We chatted and he gave me a rundown on when the pond was dug, the abundant snakes and how many turtles he had saved from the road.

Late this summer, as the water in the pond began to recede, I looked out and there was a younger lady fishing out by the road. I introduced myself, not knowing if I liked someone just popping up unannounced on the property.

She said she was the daughter-in-law of the neighbor who rescued the turtle and was moving into a house just down the road. She and her husband had a young daughter that started school in August.

Several days later I was closing the window shades at dusk, and she was out by the pond fishing with her daughter. It kind of startled me and my first thought was that they shouldn’t be on our property.

I walked out the back door and heard them laughing as the mom was teaching her daughter to cast. I ducked back in the house thinking, I hope they hadn’t seen me open the door.

It felt as though I was interrupting an intimate moment between the two.

As the water has gotten lower, we’ve seen herons, egrets and kingfishers out catching fish and a nice little earthen bench has risen from the water from which to cast.

The new neighbor has also been out there, joined by her husband and little girl. We’ve engaged in conversation from across the pond and face to face. She has shown me a video of the big snapper she caught and fought to get off her line.

Sometimes she fishes alone in the late morning when her husband and daughter are at work and school. She says that now that her daughter is in school, she should probably get a job since she had taken to fishing so much.

When she’s out there, she’s not on the phone or social media. It’s the pace of a slowed effort and the rhythm of the cast.

It’s one more thing that lower water levels have revealed.