Rainy pond

It is not yet September but it is definitely fall again. It is the story of this summer, rain and cold and no frogs. It was warm for about 3 weeks, maybe less, and I doubt it will be warm again. The pond is full almost up to the edge, you can see it in the upper right corner of this picture, it is raining so much that the pond is actually overflowing and that despite the continuing leakage problem. I really have given up on the frogs for this year, it's too bad but I guess it was just never warm enough. But who knows, maybe we'll have a killer September. The tomatoes finally ripened about a week ago and hopefully we'll have them for a bit longer, at least they didn't succumb to the dread potato virus.

Transmogrification part II

I was on the side of the pond today and I swear, one of my baby fish is turning orange. Really that's not too surprising given what we have already learned about fish changing color, but I wonder if I am just lying to myself. Which also worries me, because I value the pretty orange and gold fish more than the ugly gray and brown fish. Does that make me a bad person? On the one hand, it doesn't, because my fish are decorative objects to me and, as such, should be decorative. On the other hand, my fish obviously have personalities - Some of the big ones like to hide in the plants, other like to spend time in the deep end, and all of them know when I come to the pond and wait for me to feed them. So despite the tiny brains there is something going on there. But still, I hope my little ugly ducklings turn into swans before I have to decide what to do with them before the winter freeze (hint hint!)

Spider mites

I have something infecting my lily pads, I think they are spider mites. They look like little spiders, and they cause spots on the leaves and the plants look unhealthy. On the other hand, maybe the spider mites are the symptom and not the cause. I think they're bad, but also the other bugs and the fish seem to enjoy eating them so its all good. But I don't think the lily pads are happy about it. Which leads me to another wonder, which is why are some of my water plants looking dried out? They live in the water, how could they be dried out! When I fill up the pool, the little mites all climb on top of each other to escape the water.

Morning Glory Blues

I know I shouldn't complain about flowers, but I will. I bought a big bag of Morning Glory seeds a couple of years ago and I am sure that they were supposed to be blue. I found them in the basement this spring and planted them around the pool. I absolutely adore blue Morning Glories, there is something about that particular shade of blue which is quite amazing, so I have been looking forward to their appearance all summer. And then, voila, they start blooming and they are all white with pink streaks. Imagine my disappointment. I'm not sure if they used to be blue seeds and then changed, that is probably not a real possibility. I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the seeds, I guess I will throw them in the back of the field and buy some blue Morning Glories for next year.

My cute neighbors

There were four raccoons that came to the pond this afternoon/evening, around 6PM so it was still light out. They are very beautiful, they were obviously a family group and I tried to catch them all drinking and cleaning and fishing in the pond but of course I scared them off when I went for my crappy camera and opened the back door. It's been a bad summer for visitors, I haven't seen the turkeys at all, or the fox, or the coyote (but that's a good thing). AND NOT FROGS. But we won't talk about that it's too depressing.

Too many fish

It's finally hot and they pond got real low, a combination of ongoing leakage and evaporation. While I was filling it up the baby fish got real excited, they started trying to jump up the little waterfall between what used to be the two lower ponds - Different levels of depth, but there is only a waterfall there if the water level gets real low. A lot of the baby fish are getting pretty big so they are easier to spot and there are A LOT of them. At least 30, probably more, all sizes. None of them gold, they're all kind of a dull gray silver. I don't know what I am going to do with them once winter comes, there are really too many to keep in the fish tank and I don't really want to have a fish farm. I need a natural predator, maybe a snake, but that whole add-a-new-species-to-eat-the-other-introduced-species thing tends to end badly so I probably shouldn't go that route. Maybe I can put an add on Craig's looking for people who want to buy feeder fish.

Flotilla

I was stilling by my pond today and I noticed that I have more than two baby fish. The water had gotten really low and so I had just refilled the bottom part of the pond, and that brought them all out or something. I looked carefully and I saw that I actually have LOTS of baby fish, all different sizes, some as big as my finger nail and some as small as mosquito larvae (although they're not, they move differently.) There are so many baby fish I can even begin to count them. They appear to be gold fish but they are not gold colored, they are all kind of gray, but as I have noted previously in this blog gold fish do tend to change color so hopefully this is not a permanent condition at least not for all of them (the photo is NOT of the baby fish, it is the older fish in the upper pool, I don't think my camera is good enough to photograph the babies yet.) There are so many that I'm a bit worried about what will happen over the winter, I don't know if my fish tank is big enough ... But no thoughts of winter now! It is hot and muggy and normally I would hate it but after all the rain it's quite pleasant and anyway there is a little breeze too which cools things off.

Transmogrification

I came home from a business trip the other day and noticed that there are now only seven fish in my pool. I'm pretty sure I used to have nine fish, at any rate definitely more than seven. There were also some mild signs of disturbance in the plant life. I think some sort of animal, probably a raccoon, came and caught them. They now have access to a really deep pool but also to the shallower end which would be easy to fish them out of. Then today I was sitting by the pool, practicing my new concertina, and I noticed two little baby fish swimming around in the lower pool! They must have been born and then swept over the waterfall and therefore survived being eaten by their ancestors! I was hoping this would happen. I only have positive ID on one of them, but I am pretty sure I saw two silver ones. I also saw a lovely water bug. But no frogs, I don't know what is up with the frogs, it's lonely without them. The photo here is of my cat tails, they are looking quite nice, I will definitely cut them and keep them as a souvenir this fall.

Cat tails

The cat tails which I planted last year are thriving, and it looks like I will be getting two actual cat tails out of them. You can't see them very well in this picture, they are not very far along yet, I will post a better picture when I have one. It finally appears to have stopped raining, just in time to not ruin everyone's weekend, but the wind is strong and the cat tails are leaning over in the breeze and bobbing around so it is hard to get a good photo of them. I need to get a better camera one of these days. The pond is leaking less but still leaking, I will have to do some more experiments to figure out where it is leaking from this time. I keep getting new lilies, all yellow ones, I thought I had a white lily in there but if I do it hasn't flowered. And still no frogs, obviously, because if there were frogs that would be the first thing I would mention in my post.

Pond patches

I figured out where the leak was, it was in the shallow area between the two pools. I am not sure whether it wasn't leaking before, or the volume of water was lower and so it didn't matter as much. Note the beautiful yellow flowers that have been growing beside the leak, fed from the large amounts of water, no doubt. It is very interesting how the leaks work, I think the water slowly finds it's way out and then, as it keeps flowing through the same path, becomes slowly larger and larger and finally becomes noticeable to me, filling the pool. I made this particular part of the pool early on, before I realized that you really can't use regular cement for that purpose because it is so porous. Last weekend I slapped a good dose of hydrolyc cement on and that has done the trick. But STILL NO FROGS. I'm starting to get worried by maybe it is so cold and rainy that the frogs don't realize that it is summer yet. Neither do the rest of us.

The finished product

This is the current state of the pond. I used a sledge hammer to combine the two lower pools into one and likewise I merged the new big upper pool with the older upper pool. Now there are just two larger pools and the fish are in the upper one, which is a better arrangement because I am pumping the water out of the lower one into the upper one so if the hose from the pump gets knocked out of place and drains the lower pool the fish won't die, a constant concern of mine last summer. The fish are very happy in the upper pool, it is deep in the new part and shallow in the old part and it has lots of plants, some that wintered over and some that I planted this year. The fish are growing at an almost alarming rate, sort of like my nephew.

Major leakage

The pond is up and actually running quite well, with many new and old plants. The fish are frolicking, they love their new deep pool. However, there is a major water loss going on and I'm not sure where it is coming from. This photo is actually the wall of the upper pond leaking into the lower pond, which was some of my earliest pond construction before I had the revelation that if I added sand and gravel to the mortar that would become a conduit for water - now I stick to 100% pure hydrolic cement. Anyways I'm doing a scientific experiment and turning off the pump for a few days with the pond full to see where the water is coming from. Normally I would worry about not circulating the water but SINCE IT WON'T STOP RAINING I'm not so worried. So far it seems fairly stable and I suspect that the leaks have something to do with the higher water levels when the pump is in action. And PS, still no frogs. I wonder what's up with them.

I have a flower!

Well, that was a long vacation. Maybe partially because I got a house mate and therefore had someone to listen to me babble on about the pond, maybe because I'm just lazy. But now my house mate is moving out and so I'm back to it. This is a bull head lily flower, it is from one of the lily plants I dug up in NH last summer. That shimmery stuff on the surface is pollen, which is driving me crazy this spring as usual. It's everywhere. The lilies and other plants survived the winter just fine, which means they too can freeze solid and come back to life, just like the frog. No signs of the frog yet, but much has happened with the pond since my last post in January, so stay tuned for the exciting news!

Blogcation

The frogs are frozen in the mud, the fish seem to be recovering from there recent ecological disaster, the birds are busy at the bird feeder, Squeakers the cat is sleeping in her cave of blankets, and I have decided to go on a vacation from my blog for a little while, probably for one to two weeks. I'll still be around town and going to work, but the Blog has a flight booked for St. Thomas and is planning to spend some quality time on the beach, hence the photo. I'll be back soon when I have more to report ...

Bird feeder

The birds have discovered my bird seed, and now they are out in force. I was lying in bed wondering where they go at night when it's cold, I suppose they have warm little nests somewhere. And where do the deer go? They must huddle together for warmth deep in the trees or something since they can't build nests. Which got me to thinking, which animals don't cuddle together to stay warm? I know of one example, the Tasmanian Devil, which is so unfriendly it's a wonder they get close enough to reproduce (it's not a date movie moment either.) Definitely not on the short list for evolving into a house pet. It has been cold, with a wicked wind from the North West and when it blows from that direction there is no way to keep the house warm so I'm mostly staying in bed when I can.

Happy New Year!

Another wonderful piece of art from my friend in NH. So far the year is looking good at least for the fish, they are perky and hungry. It was freezing and windy today, and when it's windy it's impossible to heat my house, I was alone all day freezing to death. Now I've gotten smart and I'm wearing my ski coat while I'm writing this. I think we are all happy to say goodbye to last year and hello to 2009. Yeah!