On a morning that's really putting the 'wash' back in Washington - it's pouring here in Everett - I'm thinking about the water level replenishment happening in my pond. My Chevrolet pond.

My Chevrolet pond is located in front of the Anchor Pub. Really it's just my old Chevy work truck of 18 years that is angle parked on the hill in front of the Anchor. I recently replaced it with an older, but more environmentally friendly truck. Truthfully the old "Global Warmer", as I nicknamed it, was an oil-burning and leaking environmental menace in it's final years.

Since it's blessed with a great plastic bed liner, and is parked facing downhill, it has developed a nice little pond in the bed after sitting out in the rain for a month. And last week, looking at the increasing water level with mild concern, I noticed creatures back there ! Yes, my Chevy had become an ecosystem ! Albeit a pretty simplistic one. The noticeable wildlife is mostly mosquito larvae (wigglers) and what looks to be several other types of aquatic fly larvae. One really strange looking bug was in there - I finally realized it was just the pupae stage of the mosquito seen from above. The corrugated bed of the liner is interestingly piled with algae of some sort, which the minor wave action in the pond has 'winnowed' into regularly spaced piles - like little aquatic hay bales. Very close inspection reveals other tiny creatures in there.

As a kid I had a microscope at home and would go out to our backyard birdbath and get water samples to look at. What an amazing bunch of wildlife was in there! Tardigrades (water bears), rotifers, paramecium's, ect. Diatoms, and other algae. Amazing. I can only imagine the species count I could get in my little Chevy pond if I only had a microscope (and alot more pond biology text's).

While the bird and other wildlife benefits of my pond could be great - I imagine mosquito-gulping swallows, bats, ect - it's all gonna come to an end soon, because I need to move the truck. As I head up the hill toward home, the pond will be headed straight for the nearest storm drain at the bottom of Hewitt Ave, as it dumps out of the back of my truck. I wonder what lives down in that drain.

Jeff Gibson
The Anchor Pub
1001 Hewitt Ave
Everett