Woodland Treasure Seekers - Clue #3

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Wish 3 – Its A Pond Life!!
Our Wish Group, Woodland Treasure Seekers, chose the theme of pond life for our task. A garden pond can provide an area of visual appreciation, relaxation, while being able to watch the surrounding wildlife breed and survive. Children are fascinated with the outdoors; to play and discover more about themselves and the natural world around them. Our member Wendy, has a new garden project – a natural ecosystem pond!!! Wendy's grandchildren were loving the pond – scrambling about waters edge looking at the creatures there – namely a very large frog or toad - and we were chatting to both Colton and Ariella about everyone's responsibility for caring for our environment and creating a better future for our planet – which we all saw the day we went rock painting at Wendy's lovely home, with the pond life as our inspiration!! After selecting and washing our rocks, we all settled into Wendy's kitchen with a vast array of brushes and paints - to be artfully inspired and create our pond creations.
After brainstorming our ideas, our selections to paint were a lily pad, frog, turtle, and dragon fly, depicting pond life .

The Treasure Seekers Artists are:
Wendy Nugteren & Evelyn Dowling – Frog and lily pad
Marian Howes – Turtle
Brenda Rich – Dragon fly

Importance of our choices and what our Wish team learned:
Lily Pad - Besides being beautiful to look at, lily pads and water lilies do a great deal to maintain the well-being of the ponds they inhabit, by providing shade, and blocking sunlight, keeping the algae growth under control in the pond.
Frogs - as young tadpoles and adult frogs eat algae, helping to regulate the blooms and reduce the chances of algae contamination in the pond. Frogs also eat all the unwanted bugs we so dislike! (flies, ants, ear wigs, etc! Yeccch!)
Dragon flies – Assist the pond to control mosquitoes, flies and other bothersome insects, so you can enjoy your outdoor pond without being harassed by annoying, unwanted visitors (too bad it does not work on unfavourable relatives!!!)

The Rock Painting Tasks and Hiding the Rocks:
Wendy painted the frog and Evelyn painted the lily pad . Wendy and Evelyn hid the painted frog perched on the lily pad around the new pond in the yard. Wendy asked Ariella, her granddaughter (who is also a beautiful member showcased in our photograph), to find it. Ariella looked & searched, all around the pond without finding it. Wendy supplied a few small hints as to the location of the pair, and then she did find it! Ariella exclaimed "Aahhhhh it's so cute!" Wendy explained to Ariella that she could put the lily pad and frog someplace else around the pond if she wished. “No” she said, " I want to hide it for Colton (her brother) to find it!". And as of today, we are not sure if Colton is still looking for it!!
Marion's rock is painted as a cute turtle, who ended up going on rather an extended road trip on a quiet Sunday afternoon drive – after picking up her granddaughter, Macy, they continued the road trip – next stop - yummy ice cream!! After a drive, and a drop off at a friends mailbox, Mr. Turtle was hidden, in comfort, inside the mailbox. After some lengthy searching, the turtle was eventually found in his resting place in the mailbox by Marion's hairdresser. There were lots of questions (How?, Who?, What?, Where?, Why?) After some fun conversation and explanation, Mr. Turtle is residing on the counter where Marion's hairdresser works, keeping watch over her magic tools she uses daily to keep all her clients presentable, and to ensure payment for services rendered!! Lucky for turtle in this weeks heat! - Mr. Turtle is in the air conditioning!!!!
Brenda's rock is painted as the dragonfly – and after flying back via car to her home, the dragon fly rock was hid among a lot of other rocks around the swimming pool deck – a man made pond! Cole, her grandson, who is 5 years old, had the task of finding the rock – and after a few hints to check the pool deck and surrounding area, he found the dragon fly rock! Cole yelled “GiGi – you painted that?” Cole was not immediately enamoured with the painted rock and thought maybe Grandma could have done a bit of a better job of making the dragonfly look real! Cole then said - “Its big, and kind of ugly - oh well GiGi – you did your best – next time you might do better!”. Out of the mouths of babes!!!!
All in all, we had a wonderful time at Wendy's beautiful home - painting, laughing, and eating delicious, sweet watermelon. During the day, we shared a lot of laughs and stories, as we learned more about how the pond was built, our painting skills, and watching the next generation, our grandchildren, learn and appreciate how lucky we are to live in Grey County, adorned with beautiful parks, lakes, and wildlife that always brings us peace in our everyday life.

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