No ice on this pond

Not that I expected any ice. I live in one of the few states (I think
Hawai'i is the only other one) where they don't have any road signs
that say something like the overpass freezes before the rest of the
roadway. Here in Florida we firmly believe that ice belongs in
drinks, not on roads and certainly not on the sidewalk. We had sort
of a freeze here a while ago. I say sort of a freeze, because it got
some plants but not others, shoot, it even got just parts of some
plants. The banana plants got trashed, but right next to them there
is an elephant ear plant that has some leaves that got totally nuked,
but then on the same plant there are leaves that look totally
unscathed. There's another plant (I forget the name) that is
completely fine, until you get about 5 inches up, then it looks like
it got frozen silly. Not far away are the diplodinia, which are kinda
woody and have easily survived frosts before -- they've even kept on
blooming, but they got nailed. It's the freakiest and most uneven
freeze I've ever seen. I've still got dragonflies buzzing over the
pond, too many to count, and there are even some butterflies still
chasing after the flowers that remain.
--
Galen Hekhuis
Indecision may or may not be my problem...



Galen Hekhuis

On Sun, 2 Dec 2007 22:08:43 CST, Galen Hekhuis
<> wrote:

> It's the freakiest and most uneven
>freeze I've ever seen. I've still got dragonflies buzzing over the
>pond, too many to count, and there are even some butterflies still
>chasing after the flowers that remain.

I'll try to think kind thoughts of you tomorrow morning as I'm zipping
up against the 28 F and 20-25 mph winds we are supposed to get.
Checking Valdosta, GA weather, (33 F at 6 AM) looks like I'm among the
last to be blessed with the freezing temperatures going South.
--
Hal Middle Georgia, Zone 8
http://tinyurl.com/2fxzcb

In article <>,
Galen Hekhuis <> wrote:

> Not that I expected any ice. I live in one of the few states (I think
> Hawai'i is the only other one) where they don't have any road signs
> that say something like the overpass freezes before the rest of the
> roadway. Here in Florida we firmly believe that ice belongs in
> drinks, not on roads and certainly not on the sidewalk. We had sort
> of a freeze here a while ago. I say sort of a freeze, because it got
> some plants but not others, shoot, it even got just parts of some
> plants. The banana plants got trashed, but right next to them there
> is an elephant ear plant that has some leaves that got totally nuked,
> but then on the same plant there are leaves that look totally
> unscathed. There's another plant (I forget the name) that is
> completely fine, until you get about 5 inches up, then it looks like
> it got frozen silly. Not far away are the diplodinia, which are kinda
> woody and have easily survived frosts before -- they've even kept on
> blooming, but they got nailed. It's the freakiest and most uneven
> freeze I've ever seen. I've still got dragonflies buzzing over the
> pond, too many to count, and there are even some butterflies still
> chasing after the flowers that remain.
> --
Nice here in Ventura. Gotta love So. Cal. No freeze. I've got Plumerias
that still have flowers! Florida without the humidity. ;-)

--
To reply by email, remove the word "space"

On Mon, 3 Dec 2007 08:56:19 CST, Hal <> wrote:

>On Sun, 2 Dec 2007 22:08:43 CST, Galen Hekhuis
><> wrote:
>
>> It's the freakiest and most uneven
>>freeze I've ever seen. I've still got dragonflies buzzing over the
>>pond, too many to count, and there are even some butterflies still
>>chasing after the flowers that remain.
>
>I'll try to think kind thoughts of you tomorrow morning as I'm zipping
>up against the 28 F and 20-25 mph winds we are supposed to get.
>Checking Valdosta, GA weather, (33 F at 6 AM) looks like I'm among the
>last to be blessed with the freezing temperatures going South.

Valdosta is about 45min north of me. The weatherguessers say it might
get down to 35 or so Monday night, but then it begins to warm back up
and there are no freezing temperatures forecast for at least the next
10 days or so.
--
Galen Hekhuis
I have no idea what happened, but I assure you it was all proper.

Kurt wrote:

> Nice here in Ventura. Gotta love So. Cal. No freeze. I've got Plumerias
> that still have flowers! Florida without the humidity. ;-)

Yeah, yeah. Around this time of year you southerners always get so smug :-)

It's snowing right now (across most of Canada, I understand), and the
salt-water pond pretty well froze over last night, but we got our last
tomatoes out of the greenhouse last week.
--
derek

"Derek Broughton" <> wrote in message
news:...
> It's snowing right now (across most of Canada, I understand), and the
> salt-water pond pretty well froze over last night, but we got our last
> tomatoes out of the greenhouse last week.
=======================
My tomatoes in the greenhouse are still ripening fruit. No more blossoms
though except on the Patio Tomatoes. The peppers stopped blooming also.
I'll be picking the last peppers of this year soon.
--

RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }<((((*> ~~~ }<{{{{(ö>

No ice yet on my fledgling pond although I do think the frost has
carried off the water hyacinths......main bugbear at the moment is that
the wind keeps blowing over the reeds but I always knew I'd need to
plant them more firmly in the spring when I can really get going on the
pond.....No fish to worry about of course this year as I've been holding
off til spring because of how late it was in the season when the pond
eventually got finished enough to fill.....I still like looking at it
though - and it does house frogs.....

Leaves haven't been bad with only the odd one going in the pond.....the
sycamores at the back have pretty much covered the top lawn and the side
passage by the house but the pond must get some protection from the bamboo

Gill

On Mon, 3 Dec 2007 10:39:58 CST, Galen Hekhuis
<> wrote:

>Valdosta is about 45min north of me. The weatherguessers say it might
>get down to 35 or so Monday night, but then it begins to warm back up
>and there are no freezing temperatures forecast for at least the next
>10 days or so.

I feel sure you won't have a pond problem, but I hope it doesn't get
cold enough to damage the navel oranges in Florida. I look forward to
a few of those each year. We had a bit of frost this morning and I
hope it will burn off the lantana foliage so I can get the brush out
of the way a little easier. The liner died on my 1000 gallon pond, so
I'll be filling in the hole with dirt from under the lantana, when I
get around to it.
--
Hal Middle Georgia, Zone 8
http://tinyurl.com/2fxzcb

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 09:30:52 CST, Hal <> wrote:

>I feel sure you won't have a pond problem, but I hope it doesn't get
>cold enough to damage the navel oranges in Florida. I look forward to
>a few of those each year. We had a bit of frost this morning and I
>hope it will burn off the lantana foliage so I can get the brush out
>of the way a little easier. The liner died on my 1000 gallon pond, so
>I'll be filling in the hole with dirt from under the lantana, when I
>get around to it.

That's a bummer about the liner, but then, never having had one
myself, I'm sure I don't fully understand the loss. The last owner of
the property tried to grow oranges, and was sort of successful in that
the first winter there were two sort of orange-like things hanging off
a sapling. The sapling never produced any fruit while I was here, and
last year it finally gave up the ghost and expired. Farther south
there should be no problems. The whole industry (which used to be
centered around Ocala, so I've been told) has pretty much moved below
the freezing line.

Seems like the Pacific northwest is getting slammed pretty hard. A
regular hurricane is pretty grim, but they've been getting the
equivalent of a near-freezing hurricane. Winds, flooding, storm
surge, everything and cold temperatures too! At least we have our bad
weather in the summer.
--
Galen Hekhuis
Hell hath no fury like a bird in the hand

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 11:25:48 CST, Galen Hekhuis
<> wrote:

>That's a bummer about the liner, but then, never having had one
>myself, I'm sure I don't fully understand the loss.

I was planning to shut that larger pond down in the next few years
anyway, so it was just a surprise that changed my time table a bit.
Now I have all the filters hooked up to a much smaller goldfish pond
and that should work well with less maintenance.

>The last owner of
>the property tried to grow oranges, and was sort of successful in that
>the first winter there were two sort of orange-like things hanging off
>a sapling. The sapling never produced any fruit while I was here, and
>last year it finally gave up the ghost and expired. Farther south
>there should be no problems. The whole industry (which used to be
>centered around Ocala, so I've been told) has pretty much moved below
>the freezing line.
>
That's interesting. I lived in Orlando for a few months and about 4
years at Homestead (almost 50 years ago.) and enjoyed the warm winters
and the citrus fruits, but never considered their range of growth,
they were just good and it seemed like everyone with a yard had a
tree.

>Seems like the Pacific northwest is getting slammed pretty hard. A
>regular hurricane is pretty grim, but they've been getting the
>equivalent of a near-freezing hurricane. Winds, flooding, storm
>surge, everything and cold temperatures too! At least we have our bad
>weather in the summer.

I looked at a map of the Southeastern US and you seem to have an ideal
location for Florida living, without doing a lot of rebuilding after
the hurricanes. I'm a bit jealous, I always wanted to have a bit of
farm land with lots of room to dig and grow things. It worked out
though, now I have more digging space than I want to work with my
small city lot and the grandchildren are near, so everybody is happy
here.
--
Hal Middle Georgia, Zone 8
http://tinyurl.com/2fxzcb