18 Barenaked Ladies, 6 Pints of Ice Cream & a Bunch of Bananas

Posted On August 20, 2025

Congratulations!

And welcome.

You have now hereby officially entered my completely unauthorized Adirondack Outlaw writer’s social experiment.

As you will quite soon discover, this story has absolutely nothing to do with barenaked ladies, bananas, or ice cream. No, this story instead actually chronicles my ongoing efforts to bolster the carrying capacity & status of my severely drought imperiled swamp pond. It is essentially the sequel to “Rockin’ & Rollin'”.

I made a bet with myself that if I included barenaked ladies, bananas, and ice cream in the title, that this tale would get far more clicks than if I had simply titled it “Swamp Critters”.

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My Swamp Pond came into being fifteen years ago, two years into my cancer survivorship, dug, along with two other Monroe Wildlife Area ponds, for $500 & two cases of beer by two guys named Ziggy & Emo, former associates from my pre-cancer cover identity as a County CSEA union president & upstanding citizen.

But now Swamp Pond is in peril.

The wildlife that have come to depend on its waters, worried.

So, after rebuilding the rear pond bank that last year’s beaver had blown out, I decided to jump into action, assess the situation, and seize this year’s drought fueled opportunity to do what I could to dredge Swamp Pond out.

I put that concrete turtle in the pond shortly after it was dug. His head froze & fell off the 2nd winter he was in the pond. I call him “The Headless Horseman”. He’s Swamp Pond’s water level marker & is usually totally submerged. The slate bedrock pond bottom shelf he sits on is pool table smooth. It’s one of my favorite pond features. I used to love walking on it, but over time it has become covered in 3 inches of silt.

But before I could address that situation, I needed to turn my energy & attention upstream.

When first digging Swamp Pond, I did not fully comprehend or appreciate the intermittent stream that flows down through there’s full volume or force.

But when this stream is “mittant”,

it doesn’t trickle.

It RAGES!

So I dug my way down to bedrock and blew that inlet channel wide open.

Swamp Pond’s resident frog population seemed a bit dubious.

But what digging that inlet channel down to bedrock did for me was provide a solid, muck free pathway to clean the layers of silt from the pond bottom’s pool table smooth slate.

Along the way I dug out and expanded Swamp Pond’s upper slough, greatly increasing the pond’s fill rate & high water carrying capacity & thereby hopefully enhancing its ability to withstand future droughts.

As I worked my way downstream towards Swamp Pond’s outlet bridge, I double purposed my silt clearing efforts by vastly building up what used to be Swamp Pond’s two small islets into one great big island.

The full effect of my efforts won’t be fully visible for a while yet. But for now at least, I’m pretty pleased with the results.

This morning when I went for my walk there were FOUR great blue herons in the pond (of course, me without my camera). Hopefully, (for everyone not a crayfish or frog) that’s a good omen.

Anyways, thank you for participating in my social experiment & reading my Swamp Pond critter’s story.

I hope you weren’t too disappointed.

Besides, in all reality, what would you have done with 18 barenaked ladies anyways?

On second thought…

Don’t answer that.

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Until Our Trails Cross Again:

ADKO