Pond Stories

Kudos to the women in the video below! These ladies are led by Susan Baur, aka "the turtle lady." Her love of swimming in the Cape's ponds has inspired her to be an advocate for our ponds. To that end, she has written and illustrated several books, and enlisted the...

Here is a poem and illustration from Susan Baur’s book – “How Swimmers Dream” that she offered to us. The poem is her sister Jean's and the collage is by Susan. We've written about Susan before and her connection to the Cape’s freshwater ponds (which we are grateful...

From Ellen Silsby Heher, Cotuit: Peter’s Pond Campground. What a PERFECT place for mom, dad, and my two granddaughters to spend a weekend or two or three during our Cape Cod Summer. A couple of years ago I joined them to swim in the pond for most of the day and then...

Written by Marc Blesoff, July 2021 A few months ago, my granddaughter and I took a summertime walk to the local market. On the way home, the afternoon sun was at our back. In front of me I saw the shadow of an 8-year-old girl and her grandfather holding hands as they...

From book author Mick Carlon, Centerville An evening swim in Osterville’s Joshua’s Pond is a bit of perfection in an imperfect world. The spring-fed water is as clear as a Cape Cod September sky, and the trees surrounding the pond remind me of upstate New Hampshire....

From Skye Gibson: This one by William Butler Yeats is a treasure, and a poem my mother recited by heart frequently in her last years.  It is not about a Cape pond, but part of the great sisterhood of freshwater across the globe. I later had the good fortune to go to...

Thanks to Lisa Nagel for sharing this pretty poem with us. BY AN INLAND LAKE by William Stanley Braithwaite Long drawn, the cool, green shadows Steal o'er the lake's warm breast, And the ancient silence follows The burning sun to rest. The calm of a thousand summers,...

Meghan Taylor of the Brewster Ponds Coalition recently sent this to us: "The boys and I have been working on a small project. With the help of our amazing neighbors, we’ve developed a simple pledge in order to help protect our beloved Sheep Pond and the waters of Cape...

Have you ever wondered what that grassy stuff is at the edge of your pond? In this photo of Bassett Pond in Yarmouth, Sue Machie has captured not just a beautiful pond but some healthy rushes ("that grassy stuff"). This rhyme, familiar to many, could help you with...

When we moved to Brewster in the summer of 2019, our experience with winter on Cape Cod was limited. An awesome surprise was learning that many birds migrated south from the Arctic to winter in both the ocean and ponds of the Cape. Watching and photographing the birds...