Pond in the foothills

[j.w]

And you are proof of that addy, now we also need to get our butts in gear and start doing that. Stay here in Summer and head out to the southlands in Winter. Would be so nice to have warmth again.

 

[addy1]

Takes a little bit of work, house sitters, good neighbors, stable pond, happy bees. The thought that if anything breaks, goes wrong all is fixable. The cameras make it nice we can just dial in and take a look at the pond, bees, yard do a quick check up.

 

[Mike in Vermont]

I used to live in jw's climate on a boat.

That's awesome! My wife and I had dreams of living on a boat. We actually bought one together very early in our relationship. It's a 1979 34' Carver with a 12' beam. We took it down the Hudson to Atlantic City for our honeymoon. 2 days by boat from Albany, NY 5 nights at Trump Marina . Many other trips in the last 15 years. We hope to bring it up to Lake Champlain next year. It would be nice to eventually take it to Florida one day. Spend winters on the boat, and summers in Vermont. Dreams are nice but, often different from reality.

 

[MitchM]

That's awesome! My wife and I had dreams of living on a boat. We actually bought one together very early in our relationship. It's a 1979 34' Carver with a 12' beam. ...

Nice!
I had a 28' Tollycraft (like a Chriscraft) wooden powerboat.
I chose that size because I had helped a friend bring back his 28' fishing boat from Wrangell, Alaska down the Inside Passage to Bellingham, Washington. It was a size I thought I could handle by myself. I also love wooden boats.
What a trip that was!

 

[CountryEscape]

Someone posted a very clear pic of a cougar that was spotted south of Effingham, within 2 miles of where I used to rent a house 5 years ago! I always want to question whether the pic is real, but the radio station and tv station both posted it to their websites, and they named names, and the guy that said it was on his trail cam is a local guy. So ... they ARE in our area! It was a beautiful creature, if I do say so myself. I love the big cats, just a little leery of them if I had goats or young cows or something of that nature. Guessing they feed on deer and other smaller animals in the woods. They are here, so we have to deal with them. I hope no one shoots one this weekend, first shotgun weekend for deer hunters. No legal season for hunting cougars ... according to the State, there aren't any around! lol

 

[j.w]

I would not be out walking at night w/cougars in the area. Just be careful walking to the barn etc. Your dogs will protect you the best they can but cougars can be rather hard on dogs too. They have been seen around here in the past but none recently that I know of but then they like to remain pretty low key and could be right under our noses w/o being spotted.

 

[callingcolleen1]

No.
But it's not about keeping a hole open in the ice, it's about exposing pond water to air for gas exchange.
The pond breather acts like your method of pointing a pump at the surface, except the breather does it through a heated tube using 1/10 the electricity your method does.
Those 1500 watt trough heaters only keep open a small hole and the water isn't moving around them.
Plus I tried a 1500 watt heater and it froze over in my climate.

Mitch you have the same climate I have. The reason it failed to keep a bigger hole open is because you had no moving water. They work best with pump moving water around heater, and the faster the current around heater, the bigger the open hole

 

[callingcolleen1]

And keep a close eye on your doggies when you suspect cougar in your area!

 

[MitchM]

The breather works for me, Colleen, plus it's a lot cheaper to run.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes it does work good for you and all your sweet Rosy Minnows. I was just pointing out to those who need the floating heater that it would de-ice the pond better with running water to circulate the heat throughout the whole pond better. Lots of people in harsh climates with a small pond and big fish will need a bigger heater as a small pond would freeze too hard, especially if the ground freezes very deep too.

Next summer you will have a big swarm of them and they will eat tons of bugs, bad small bugs. The small eye see's the small fly! They are better at getting little bugs than goldfish. If you get lillys for your pond, they will eat all the aphids that typically bother lilly pads better than goldfish can. Once you get a large enough school they will look really good schooling too and I would love to see the pictures of large schools of rosys next summer! Did you ever get any plants started along the edges, cause you could go get stuff out of the wild, like I did years ago. I got different rushes and grasses and still have them today. If you stick clumps of this and that, you could put the clumps in your wifes old nylon socks, and that would hold the dirt in, then take the clumps and squeeze them into the rocks along the edge of your pond. They will grow out of the sock and spread nice along the edge of the pond. You do not need to put stuff in pots, and in many cases large plants like rushes and cat tails need to be "cut loose" from pot to spread nicely!

 

[morewater]

The problem with cougars is that once they've got a coupla drinks in 'em, they just won't take "no" for an answer.

Older cougars with liver spots are called "leopards".

A skilled cougar can put her lipstick on without taking her cigarette out of her mouth.

 

[callingcolleen1]

HA HA HA ha ha ha he he he he!!!

 

[addy1]

 

[j.w]

 

[MitchM]

Came across a blood trail along our driveway this past week, but I didn't see any boot prints from a hunter trying to follow up on the kill.
An animal was shot and fled into the forest on our property.
I tried to follow it but lost the trail from all the other wildlife prints.
I really don't like this hunting month.