It is a long sad story

Once upon a time I had a lovely garden pond and flowers bloomed and little birds took showers in the water dripping down the rocks but then those naughty little deer walked into it and their little pointy hooves made little holes in the liner and it never was the same again.
So now, for numbers of years we have had this unsightly black hole which we have to explain "used to be a pond" but we never seem to come up with the sizable sum it would cost to line it with proper EPDM liner that the deer could not puncture. And we do love our deer.We put water out for the momma who brings her babies to drink and we are thankful to give them a safe place not out in the fields with the harvesting.
We finally decided we are never going to line that ugly hole so today James poked holes in the bottom of the liner so the last of the water could drain away and we rolled the rocks off the edges of the liner and tomorrow James will come with the tractor and yard the liner out and we'll take all the assorted foam we had as cushioning to the dump and fill in the hole.

 This is what remains and once it is gone we will fill in the hole and make a level seating area in the yard so the legs on people's lawn chairs are less likely to buckle and send them rolling down the hill. I am looking forward to having flower beds I can get at from both sides
And another sad story:

The "stemmy" plant in the middle is my Japanese Knot Weed in it's dead late winter phase. It dies to the ground every year and through most of the winter hangs on to it's beautiful dried burnt sienna coloured leaves. Every summer it grows to be a wonderful 6 foot bush with large green leaves and little white flowers.
Now, sadly, "they" are listing it as a noxious weed so it goes too, sniff. I'll have such a nice open space to create in!
And so goes the battle ......