Worked most of the day outside in the yard, had to take the little 80 gallon display pond apart, and pumped most of the water out, waited till the water settled the leafs and caught the last two small goldfish that were hiding in there and moved them to the bottom pond in the back yard, where other small goldfish live.
Took the water Callas out of the middle Pond, the tops had half died off, and stored on the floor of the greenhouse which is heated to just above freezing. The Callas will go format and sit there dry, till spring.
I gathered the frost bitten long slender spear shaped leaves of the yellow flag, into a pile, and stacked above the plant, they should pull away nicely in the spring. Snow should fall tonight over the pile and further insulate the huge yellow flag in the pond. This yellow flag is a naturally floating root ball, and provides a home for the fish, as they like to disapear under this plant for the winter.
There was a big chunk of ice in this large bucket of water I had outside with a few plants from the front pond.
Pond surface water temperature of the big back yard ponds is currently 41 degrees. Larger bodies of water take longer to freeze up, although I expect to find some ice on the main ponds within days now.
Supposed to snow for the next couple days, starting later tonight!
