Golden pool, millpond

I've been trying to get to the millpond dam area at least a few times a week, and really, I should be getting there every day. The reason, of course, is to do daily battle against an implacable foe: Castor canadensis, a.k.a., the Beaver. Every time I arrive, I'm armed with garden tools to punch holes in the dam that now prevents water from flowing over the waterfall. To be sure, in these days of awful drought, there wouldn't be much water cascading over the dam's rocks, but, because of the ceaselessly toiling rodents, there's no waterfall at all. There's also no stream. But I'm pretty hard-working too, and, while it is probably a futile effort, I'm not going to let the beavers lay waste to the area below the dam without a fight. Today, I made two holes in the beaver dam, and the waterfall was quickly restored to at least partial glory. Soon enough, there was water again in the stream. The reward was seeing the pools turned to spun gold: a change in the color of light that signals the approaching change in the seasons.