We’re often told to follow our dreams, well one person in Nova Scotia has done just that after building a wetland paradise for animals in the spirit of his lost love.
In his own backyard no less, the eight water features which Robert Perkins dug into the ground are now a sanctuary for herons, frogs, snapping turtles, and beavers, in the middle of suburban development.
In 1974, Perkins met a woman whom he calls Rhonda on the sidewalk, and the two of them hit it off. They both loved animals, and she always dreamed of having a place where they could live in harmony with the land. Rhonda, whom Perkins stayed with all his life, had had a difficult life, and a traumatizing childhood.
She committed suicide in 2006, after which Perkins resolved to forge an earthly paradise where her spirit could dwell in peace.
Renting an excavator, and ignoring planning departments and neighbors alike, Perkins began digging large holes and trenches for water to flow. Over the course of nine years his property went from being a neighborly headache to a haven for wildlife.
“I just seen a better way to do it,” Perkins told CBC news. “When we build our subdivisions we clear all the trees, we dry the hills, drive all the water down to the lakes, all the pollution… The beavers hold it back, filter it.”
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Wetland habitats of all sorts are not only magnets for wildlife, but probably offer the most complete package of ecosystem services, including preventing erosion, sequestering carbon, enriching the soil, and supporting game populations.
Flooding in straightened canals or waterways can often occur in mere minutes, and be incredibly damaging. Natural water features slowly overflow, dumping water in more even and random distributions around them. This serves to greatly increase the amount of rainwater an area can take before flood problems arrive, and also to irrigate large sections of forest and meadow that might dry up without the ponds, rivers, and marshes.
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Perkins bought the land and did it himself, but when building backyard water features it’s important to consider the soil characteristics. Rocky soil drains fast, while soil rich in clay will act as a natural sealant, aggregating soil particles together and preventing drainage.
He said he doesn’t need to wonder what Rhonda might think of the place, he feels her presence whenever he walks alone among the trees, the reeds, and the ponds, looking at birds, beavers, or reptiles, and listening to the songbirds and frogs.
“Is it painful? Sometimes,” said Perkins. “But I couldn’t walk away from her… If I’m here, she’s here.”
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