Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

A torrent of rain is coming down right now.  Our front steps are the definition of "a river runs through it" and the basement has water.  It's almost as dark as night.  I'm worried about my kids commuting and the trees falling and the apocalypse.  Just kidding about the last.  We kind of already had that in 2016.  I have an excellent mystery to fall back on and sewing to tackle and my writing group is tonight.  We have a pond in the back yard we had to fill in, because our dogs got guiardia and were susceptible to reoccurrence.  My poor husband had built the pond, and a stream that recirculated the water and it was so lovely, with smooth stones in the bottom.  Now it is gravel, but when it rains like this, in ghostly fashion, the water rises over the gravel and for a brief shining moment we have a pond again.  Now that the dogs are gone, why don't we dig it out?  Well, we discovered that rats and squirrels and raccoons loved the water source, and that, coupled with our apple and persimmon trees the backyard made a spa-like environment for the little vermin, so that won't happen.  I'm friendly to all sentient beings, but not to the point of having a bed and breakfast for them.