Got rocks?

One by one he's determined to remove every last rock from his personal wading pool (a.k.a. our little backyard pond). There's no interest in the dry rocks on the shore; he prefers instead to snorkel for the choicest rock.


He runs around with it in his mouth like a prize, tail high in the air, before settling down for a good chew. (Yes, he eats rocks.)


He might even roll on his back some with it. Thank heavens he hasn't discovered the joy of burying stuff yet! As it is, the DH's patience is running thin.


Makes Luka pretty happy, though. I think he's pleased to amuse and entertain us. (Well... me anyway.)


This is the fresh face I get should I be silly enough to reprimand him between fits of laughter. Have I mentioned lately how nutty this dog is?

Count the fishies

The first summer we put in our pond we were pretty conservative with the number of fish we provided for. I think we started with less than twenty and I worried that even that small number was too much for our 1100 gallons. There was, of course, some formula involving the number of gallons divided by the 'inches of fish' that confounded me, as does most math, so we sort of ignored it and hoped that we didn't have too many fish to overload the filtration system.

Pond books also had me scared to death to actually feed them very much food. I had the idea that if I fed them too much, the pond would quickly go green and the goldfish would grow to monstrous proportions in just one season. So I fed them once a day, if I remembered.

However many years out now... 6 or 7 since we put it in... I've decided that most of what I read in books is baloney. Maybe you have to worry about all that crap if you have a really small pond and man-eating koi, or if you think of a garden pond in terms of an indoor tropical aquarium, or have no means of filtering it, but I've found that it takes care of itself pretty well so long as I just leave it alone!

And the fish, well, they're taking pretty good care of themselves too and multiplying. We added three small koi two summers ago and they seem to really like it here. They've certainly added some color to the mix of babies. Somehow the twenty or so survivors that we started with last spring have turned into...

Well, I'll let you guess. You can try counting them in the pic, but like those count-the-jelly-beans-in-the-jar contests, it's much more fun to just eyeball it and make a guess.

The person who guesses with the closest number wins all of this season's babies!

;-)

Note: I've finally added a category in the sidebar for pond posts, so if you should ever be in the mood for reading more, go there.

The interim

Hal Borland made me chuckle this morning with this:

"No matter what happens now, the year has committed itself, January is past, this is February, and up there ahead lie March and April. And May. But since man is man, not woodchuck, he has to live with the interim, not sleep it out and emerge into a green and vernal world. Incidentally, there weren't any woodchucks out in this neck of the woods on Groundhog Day. If the alarm clock went off, they let it ring, as they usually do.

This is probably as good a time as any to remember that it is only 85 days until May Day, when violets will be in bloom and the lawn will need to be mowed again. And it is only 149 days till the Fourth of July, when the beaches will be jammed and sunburn will be as universal as sniffles are now.

And it is only 208 days till Sept. 1st. That won't be the end of Summer by the almanac, but to all practical purposes Autumn starts with Labor Day. Back to the desk, back to work, back to school. And the next thing we know, it will be October and first frost and Columbus Day and the height of the color in the trees in New England. And before you can catch your breath it will be Thanksgiving. How time flies! If you really must know, it is only 323 days till Christmas. And then it will start snowing again.

Maybe we shouldn't have brought the matter up to begin with. But it is February, after all, only 85 days till May Day." -- from Sundial of the Seasons

Day after day, year upon year I find a minute to read the day's entry in this favorite of all my books. Hal Borland somehow always manages to speak to the things I know to be true and, more often than not, makes me laugh in the process.

I laugh at myself for longing to see my little pond alive again, like in this photo, rather than the sad gloomy mess it is at the moment. I almost can't wait to have my hands in the dirt come Spring, though it will mean an end to the twice monthly manicures that have my fingernails looking pretty for a change.

That's not to say that I'm not enjoying this time in between, but maybe that it's the anticipation of the next that makes now enjoyable. Tonight it's almost 60 degrees and I'm wondering if I shouldn't have found my way out to the farm field in back to see if the woodcock weren't feeling that same anticipation.

Lily and cats

Remember the new purple waterlily I mentioned in this post, well, here's one open. Nice, huh? I like the color combination, but wish it would bloom a bit more. I feel like I ought to fertilize the pond plants, but with so many fish at the moment, it's probably not necessary!

We had an odd frog incident: I found a smallish bullfrog dead on the slate floor of the gazebo next to the pond. At first I thought maybe it had hopped out and baked itself somehow on the oven-hot slate, but then I noticed one of its' legs was a few feet away and half-chewed up. This afternoon brought a possible explanation: my husband startled a cat from the pond area this morning. That explains how yesterday's dead frog moved itself a foot or more by this afternoon! I also found a black swallowtail dead on the floor of the gazebo - wings only! I expect cats to hunt birds and baby rabbits, but bullfrogs and butterflies?

I wish my neighbors were more responsible with their cats. I could never get away with the same behavior with a dog - why should it be any different for cat owners? At any rate, my husband set a trap out - I would hate to see a neighbor's beloved pet end up at the pound, but we won't have a well-fed housecat using our garden as a hunting ground.

Too much of a good thing

Everything in the pond is growing out of control! The mint that grows along the rock edge is spilling over and sending roots into the pond. The water lettuce and hyacinths that we bought in early May are reproducing at a frightening rate. We bought three of each and must have at least 50 of each now just two months later! It's no wonder those two are considered noxious weeds in tropical climates. I'll have to find friends with ponds who might like a few dozen floating plants. Maybe I can throw in a dozen baby fish for free? Having some shade and cover for the fish is important, but you can see from this pic that more than 2/3 of the pond surface is covered by plants - that's too much - and may lead to problems with the oxygen level in the pond. Anyone want some free plants?

Someone's been awful busy

Suddenly our little backyard pond is full of baby fish. In fact, I think we have more babies than grown-up fish-making fishies. It's quite a surprise when your pond population seemingly doubles overnight. Makes you wonder how you could have missed the fish being so busy! Some years are like this; the fish are very fertile and make lots of little gold and black speckled babies, other years there are none or at least none survive long enough to be visible to us. I wonder why that is?

My husband and I have been amusing ourselves the last few days by trying to get an accurate count of just how many babies there are, but it's next to impossible. They dart and hide very efficiently. We're guessing whether they're goldfish babies, koi babies, or mutts of some sort. The fish aren't telling; neither is the fairy who keeps watch over their antics.

Bath interrupted

All the neighborhood birds, especially the robins, love the shallow end of our pond.
Have you noticed that one bathing bird seems to draw others? I focused on the robins, but there were a few house sparrows and a mourning dove waiting their turn on the sidelines.Raccoons or wading birds could have a feast with the *walk-in* design of our pond, but the fish have plenty of hiding places and like to tickle the bird's toes in the shallows while they bathe.
My husband says we have the biggest and nicest birdbath in the neighborhood. I think the robins would agree.

Blooming this week

I had wanted to brag a little last night about my peonies; aren't they nice? I prefer single peonies, rather than the doubles that flop all over the place, even though the singles don't last in a vase. All of those white flowers you see are on one plant! Right next to it is another peony that never gets any buds. The foliage is beautiful, but no buds. I've read that's because either there's too much shade or it's planted too deeply. Neither explanation makes any sense to me because the one next to it is doing so beautifully. Any ideas?
I bought this pond plant a few weeks ago and love it! Problem is I don't know what it is, but I do think it may be the same flower that Susan was wondering about yesterday.
This is a flower on the Sourgum Tree we planted this spring. Not much to look at, but the birds and I are hoping for fruit this year. The tree is leafing out nicely, and the new foliage is tinged with purple.
The viburnums are blooming, too. This one gets the most sun so it blooms first and the most heavily. These are Linden viburnums; the Winterthur is struggling to put out leaves and I doubt there will be any blooms. There has got to be some problem with the spot it's planted in because this is like the 3rd or 4th Winterthur I've planted there and every one of them dies. Maybe I'm just not meant to have that particular viburnum as much as I like it. The Cranberrybush Viburnum we planted this spring bloomed very early because it was greenhouse raised, but it was pretty while it lasted.

So what's blooming where you are?

Send in the clowns

We bought one of those gazebo thingies to put out by the pond and I need some convincing that it doesn’t look like a circus tent. It doesn’t, does it?

We have a nice-sized yard and the pond is a beautiful area, but it’s in the blazing sun and surrounded by rock and stone and is really the last place on earth that you want to spend any amount of time on a hot summer’s day. So my thinking is that this way we can have some shade and a few comfortable chairs and even some protection against the famous Jersey mosquitoes if we want to sit out there in the evening. Based on a test run late this afternoon I can also tell you that it’ll be a fabulous spot for a nap, with the sound of the water lulling you off into dreamland.

I think this is our sixth summer with the pond and we’re still not finished. Each year we tweak a little something to get it to where we want it to be. This gazebo is another step in that direction, I think. You might have noticed that we removed most of the fence from around the pond – except for the bit that faces the street. I’m nervous about that, but both my husband and I hated it and it really detracted from our enjoyment of the pond, plus it stuck out like a sore thumb. This way we have an unobstructed view from inside the house and from the screen patio. Anyone who is inclined to wander too close to the pond will have to walk through the middle of our yard in order to do it – hopefully no one will. We live on a quiet street, but have a lot of visitors parking beside our house because of a luncheonette on the opposite corner. The pond is something of a magnet, but I hope people’s better sense will prevail and they’ll stay on the street side of the fence.

The weather here has been much more like the 4th of July than Memorial Day. We went ahead and put up the awnings, which help to keep the house cool, but make it dark like a cave. I miss the sun streaming through the windows, but it’s been uncomfortably hot these past few days. I have just a few days left of vacation and intend to be very lazy and put the new circus tent to good use!

Pond progress

Mary had asked for some pond pics and we've done a bit of work lately so that I'm not so embarrassed to share photos. The filter's been running for a few weeks after the major cleanout we did and the 20 or so fish are back in the pond. This past weekend we finally bought a few plants and that has made a world of difference in how the pond looks! We bought some parrot's feather and a sensitive fern, some rushes, and a pickerel plant, and some elephant ears. We also bought a few of the *floaters* to offer some shade until we buy any waterlilies. The floating heart that grew last year as a volunteer has started sending out shoots and the mint that grows in the rocks is already out of control! This year I would really like to work on planting the edges of the pond; other than a few hostas, daylilies, and some monarda, nothing much that I've planted in the past has been able to survive. The pond is in full sun for most of the day and those rocks really heat up! I haven't spotted the frog since we did the cleanout, but I'm sure he's lurking there somewhere.

While I was away...

So I’ve not been around very much this past week, but I’ve been busy finishing up with school and out and about enjoying the bounty of spring. Plus, I didn’t have much of interest to say, still don’t in fact, but don’t want to make it a habit to just post a pic and be off.

Since I last had anything much to say here I’ve been to two wakes for coworkers of my husband and a memorial service for an old birding buddy who passed away back in January. I dragged my husband along on a day trip to the Pine Barrens and spent a lunch hour or two at the little park near to where I work watching the tree sparrows fight over the too few nest boxes. I had a successful evening looking at wildflowers in the woods and three unfruitful visits to various spots locally looking for migrants. The only new birds I’ve added this week are Baltimore Oriole, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Eastern Kingbird, Ovenbird, Oystercatcher, Willet, Common Tern, Laughing Gull and whichever Vireo it is that sings incessantly from the treetops. Other people are seeing great birds, but I haven’t managed to be in the right spot at the right time.

The pond is up and running and the fish are happy, my husband has cut the lawn twice and we got our hands on 5 little dwarf mountain laurels for the woodland border. I’m looking for ideas of what to plant as a groundcover in that area beneath the American Holly trees, so if anyone has any bright ideas I’d love to hear about them soon, while my husband is in the habit of digging planting holes. If I don’t come up with any other ideas, I’ll probably plant a few ferns just as soon as I figure out which ones might actually be able to survive in the dry shade.

Hope you all had a happy weekend; I’ll be around to visit with you before too long.

Pond clean-up

We accomplished most of the pond cleanup yesterday. In the interest of honesty I'll show you pics of just how ugly it was, but I'd really rather not. Bad, bad, bad. It's our fault for not ever getting a cover over it in the fall to keep the leaves out and there was really no way to avoid emptying it. I never even got to push my lilies and other pond plants down to the deep end, so they're mush from having been frozen. We pumped the water out of the pond and onto our newly planted trees, so all that fish fertilizer will be put to good use.

As nasty as it looks, most of the water we pumped out was actually pretty clear. The fish are in a holding tank for a week or so while we refill the pond and let the water settle. You can see how clear the water was in the pic below.
We rescued this lone surviving frog from the skimmer box. There was another in there that was well past stinky! I feel badly for the frogs and don't understand how they manage to die over the winter, considering all the leaves and mulm they have to burrow under. I wonder if it would be possible to catch them in the fall and bring them inside? I wouldn't want to make a pet out of a wild frog, but I hate finding them dead in the spring.

Here's a view of the sparkly clean pebble beach as we started to refill the pond late yesterday afternoon. The birds love this part of our pond, because most of this area is only an inch or two deep. It's a nightmare to keep clean, but worth seeing the birds come in for a bath. The fish also love to play in this part and root around in the pebbles. Down at the far end of the pond the water is a little over 3 feet deep and it holds about 1,000 gallons. So the pond is filled today and the frog is back in one of his hiding spots. I'll wait till the weekend to put the fish back once the filter has been running for a while. The only time I add any chemicals to the pond is in the spring when we have to clean it out like this and then I use just a dechlorinator. The next step is to get some pond plants and some annuals to dress up the edge. It'll be pretty before long!

Water lily

How significant that the rich, black mud of our dead stream produces the water lily; out of that fertile slime springs this spotless purity! It is remarkable that those flowers which are the most emblematical of purity should grow in the mud.

- Henry David Thoreau, from a journal entry

I felt like looking at water lilies today, so I'm posting this pic from last summer of one that grows in my little pond. I've forgotten the name, but water lilies tend to be mislabeled when I buy them anyway. It's beautiful, that's enough!

My guilty pleasure for the day was going to a bookstore during my lunch hour. I bought a charming book of nature quotes, poetry, short essays, and watercolors called Meditations on Nature, Meditations on Silence published by Heron Dance Press. Their books are beautiful and I snatch them up whenever I come across one. Heron Dance also has a website that you might like to explore.

A random sort of Sunday

The birthday boy cutting the lawn - what a way to spend your birthday. "Just like any other day," he says. He bought himself that big honkin' mower this spring and drove it through the fence and nearly into the pond the first time he used it. Sadly I wasn't there to take pics of that! He blamed it on the funny hand controls - yea right!
We turned off the pump and filter on the pond this afternoon. One day this week we'll get the net out to cover it, so I figured I should take a few last pics of the fishies until spring. The garden is so quiet without the waterfall running, but I won't afford to run it all year. My rule is that the heat doesn't go on until the pond is shut down and my husband has been almost shivering watching tv in the evenings so getting that done was a priority today, birthday or no.
I planted some pansies in the newly mulched beds and in the basket of this bunny statue that marks the spot beneath the serviceberry where Mr. Bean, my first flemish giant, is buried.
I also put in pansies and some decorative kale in the other little garden for bunnies that have hopped on to the bridge. This spot is so pretty in late spring with a huge bleeding heart and budding peonies that I like to keep it pretty in the fall also.
I love the fall colors of the grasses and dogwoods in the back garden. I don't know the name of this fountain grass, but I have five or six of them scattered around the place.

So now there is a birthday dinner to cook, followed by sugar-free pumpkin pie instead of birthday cake (and peanut butter cookies for me) for dessert. Papers to grade and laundry to do. Bunnies to feed. Dog to get out for a stroll. The list goes on.

Writing beside the pond

I've written very little lately about the pond. After the initial flush of bloom from the waterlilies and other plants, early in the season, I haven't spent much time out there or posted very many pics. I feed the fish most days and occasionally scoop out the fish poop that tends to accumulate in areas where the water doesn't circulate well, but other than that, the pond has pretty much taken care of itself this summer.

I did need to intervene during the heatwave in mid-July when the overly hot water threatened to boil my pretty goldfish and slimly algae covered the pebble beach. An afternoon with the muck-vack and daily water changes kept that disaster at bay. The frogs have been fairly active and vocal, especially the tree frog who hung around for a month or so. Before he vanished I was finding him calling each evening from inside one of the slats of the pvc fence that surrounds the pond - he found a spot with excellent accoustics. There have been very few dragonflies this summer, which is disappointing because I enjoy watching them so much. No dragonfly nymphs either; I've spent many hours in past summers rescuing them (or so I imagined) from inside the skimmer net where they seem to prefer to set up shop. I never got around to planting any annuals along the pond's edge as I usually do and never even fertilized the waterlillies. Despite that, the new tropical, purple in the opening photo, is still going strong, with two blooms on most days. Before long I'm going to need to figure out how to overwinter it; if anyone nearby would be willing to rent out a small space in their greenhouse it might just continue to bloom through the winter. We planted new fountain grasses at the back of the waterfall a few weeks ago to replace the switch grasses that were there. Switch grass is pretty early in the season before it flops over and looks like it was trampled by an elephant.

One morning this week my husband startled a young black-crowned night heron from beside the pond. Leaving for work before it was fully light out, he called me from bed to bring my binoculars. Sleepy-eyed, I found it perched clumsily in one of the holly trees at the edge of the yard. We haven't seen it since and there don't seem to be any fish missing, so I can happily add this new bird to the yard list. I hope this first heron to visit the pond doesn't mean that others will follow; while I won't begrudge them fishing rights, I have become fond of some of my fish. Maybe this wasn't the first visit and explains the occasional fish that has gone missing over the years.

I was poking around this afternoon in the bog garden, wondering over some goldenrod that is growing wild despite the soggy soil, when I found this black and yellow garden spider, commonly called the writing spider. I'd never seen one of these before and was happy to find it there, in its web, overlooking the pond. In the web were two carefully wrapped skippers, caught unawares on their way to or from the joe-pye weed, still blooming nearby.

An interesting bit of folklore about writing spiders says that they can be used to cast a spell on an enemy. All one need do is shout the person's name at the spider, after which the spider will write the name in its web, and misfortune will follow for the intended victim of the spell. You might also try asking the spider the name of your future husband or wife, and the spider will oblige by writing the name or initial of your future mate in the zig-zag portion of its web, called the stabilimentum.

Sunday by the pond

A volunteer in the bog garden.

Fishies playing around in the shallow end of the pond.

Dragonfly whose name I can't come up with. Maybe a blue dasher?

Sweet baby robin, looking for a place to put in for a bath.

Joe Pye Weed blooming in the bog.

I spent the afternoon doing some work around the pond. The heat is causing the usual algae problems in the shallow end of the pond. The water is crystal clear (thanks to the UV light), but the little pebbles that line the beach are covered with slimy algae. I have this contraption called a *Muck Vac* which I use to suck up some of the junk that accumulates in the pebbles, but using it is a nightmare! Whoever thought to combine a vacuum with a garden hose must have been delirious. I spend most of the time fighting with the various hoses and trying to keep some sort of suction going. What isn't sucked out I blast away with the hose. Labor-intensive, but it works and now the rocks are clean and it doesn't look like a swamp out there. For a few days anyway. I trimmed the yellow and brown leaves off of the water-lilies and hacked away at the mint that is taking over the edge. The parrot's feather and water lettuce were reduced by half, but I still have too much of both. They provide a lot of shade for the fish, but do get carried away with themselves!

Found!

After listening to this tree frog sing for the last 2 weeks, I finally found him early this evening and was able to take his pic. During the day he's been hiding inside one of the rungs on the vinyl fence that surrounds the pond. I found him there by accident one afternoon while weeding. Later I realized why I think he chose that spot. When he calls in the early evening from inside the fence he sounds very loud and his song has a fantastic echo! Smart frog.

Once the lightening bugs were out and the crickets started making noise I went looking for him in the bog garden and found him perched on a low Joe Pye leaf - he must have just come out of his daytime hiding spot to hunt for bugs. Bev at Burning Silo had a great post a few weeks back about gray treefrogs called What do you see? - neat pics and her blog is always a good read.

Walking on water

I spent too long this evening trying to get pics of the water striders on the pond, before deciding I don't have the right equipment or enough patience, or both. I found this pic on an invasive species website (click on pic for link).

Water striders, also called Jesus bugs or pond skaters, are true bugs that can run across the surface of the pond because of lots of microscopic non-wetting hairs on their legs. The short front legs are used for grasping prey (of what type I'm not sure), the long middle legs are used like paddles to skate across the water, and the rear legs are used for steering and braking. I've read that they're sensitive to vibrations on the water's surface and use that skill to locate their prey. Fish and birds will dine on them, catching them because these bugs aren't able to detect motion from above or below the surface of the water. My trying to photograph them caused them to leap onto a lily leaf or amongst the water lettuce; I suspect because my being so near the water attracted the interest of the fish looking for a handout.

If you're interested in reading more about how water striders use surface tension to walk on water, an article describing a study by MIT researchers is available here. Neat pics from the study, done using dye, are available here.

The science behind it all is interesting, yet I'd much rather just watch and wonder, enjoy their skating and the dimples they make on the pond's surface when still. Wonder and curiosity about the natural world need not be satisfied or lost because of knowledge. For me, it seems that learning only leads to more questions and an even greater curiosity.

A late June day beside the pond

The pond is overflowing with color now that warmer temps have set in. Daylilies, bee balm, hostas, and ladybells blooming on the margins all try to distract my attention from the water and fish. Mint is creeping from every wet rock edge. Last night's tree frog is calling again from somewhere in the bog garden; maybe high up on one of the Joe Pye stems, ready to decend for another evening spent advertising his new-found territory. The Parrot's Feather is spreading across the surface of the water and creating shade and cover for the fish as it grows. Last weekend I bought this beautiful purple waterlily; it's a tropical, so I'll have to try and overwinter it indoors somehow.

Beautiful! Three flowers were open today, but I focused on just this one.

This is one of the white butterfly koi that was hiding the last time I was out taking pics.

One of many volunteer Floating Hearts (Nymphoides peltata) - visible in the opening photo along the left edges of the pond - the small leaves are heart-shaped and resemble a waterlily. Not sure where it came from, but it sure is pretty! And free!

The other white butterfly koi who is turning more yellow as the days pass - beautiful, hungry fish!

I love late afternoons by the pond - less glare from the sun lets me see the fish beneath the water and the neighborhhood is quiet. If it weren't for the mosquitos, I think I could spend hours out there. It mesmerizes me somehow; the ever-changing patterns of fish and leaf and moving water.

Frog hunting

I'd like to have a pic to show you of the little brown frog that has been calling loudly from the yard and pond all evening long. During a late dinner my husband asked me, "What bird is that?" and with the fans blowing and the rain, I couldn't hear very much so I told him it must be a mockingbird. Ever curious, I stepped outside after dinner and knew it was no mockingbird! I went back in for the flashlight and searched around my neighbor's fence because the sound seemed to be comng from that direction. I didn't find anything and, of course, whatever it was went quiet as soon as I came out with the flashlight. A little while later it started calling again, but this time the sound seemed to be coming from the far back of the yard by the pond. I roamed around for a while with the mosquitos and eventually found this little brown frog with black markings calling from the rocks beside the pond. He's not shy at all and continued to call while I held the flashlight by him.

Just off the top of my head I thought it might be a leopard frog, but the pictures and sound calls I found on the web don't match. Nothing I found matches what this little guy looks/sounds like. Very frustrating! I know just how beginning birdwatchers feel. He's pretty small; not much bigger than my fire-belly toads, if that's any help. And he's very loud and insistent. He hasn't stopped calling at all, even when I let the dog out. I wonder if it could be a toad? Anyone know how to tell the difference? With all the rain we got today, I guess maybe amphibians are on the move. Can anyone take a guess what kind of frog I might have or suggest a website? From close-up, his call sounds sort of like the sound Carolina Wrens make in the fall, when they're scurrying through the underbrush - as if that's any help to you. ;-)