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When I was young, there was a tremendous hickory tree almost right in front of our front door, about 20 or 25 ft from the door. We'd save the hickory nuts in paper grocery bags to throw out on the snow for squirrels in the winter. We'd use the outer hulls as boats to sail on our tiny pond, which was about 2x4 ft in area and no more than 6 in deep. It froze over in the winter and we could walk out on the ice, watching the newts slowly walk around on the pond floor. It may seem presumptuous to call that a pond, but before my dad built the dam out of the local clay, the creek was more like 4 inches wide and 1 inch deep.