Ah, pond ownership. You start out with a picture perfect goal in mind, and everything works great until you actually attempt to implement those goals into the environment that is your pond.
Then begins the compromising. And to a certain degree, the capitulation once realization sets in that what we desire in our ponds, may not be at all what nature has in mind. It doesn't have to mean that what we want is unobtainable, only that decisions must be made, priorities recognized, and occasionally, sacrifices endured.
I think a pond is like a jigsaw puzzle, where all the individual pieces must work together, and interact with one another before the big picture can be realized. Taking out your pocketknife and whittling on a stubborn piece to make it fit where you think it should go might bring short term satisfaction, but the end result will suffer.
Fortunately for pondmeisters, we are given a ceetain leeway. Rather than being forced to use only those puzzle pieces that came out of the box, we are permitted to design a few of our own...but they still need to interlock, and interact with all the other "boxed" pieces in order to work properly.
