We’re starting over. Clean out, start with fresh water, find ourselves some bird netting (fruit trees) to cover the pond while baby fish grow, and as soon as we have the water nice for fish, we’ll be starting over. We’re sad but starting to plan, and we’ve got a better winter system: I only wish we’d seen it before this happened. We’ll probably have to special order two, of Ari’s type and Maddy’s—the golds and silvers are specialty colors that have to be bred for. And we’ll just apply what we’ve learned and do it better this time. The pond is close to ten years old, so a cleanout is due: I’ll turn on the back yard water supply—it’s past a real hard freeze, now—and the snow is mostly melted. I’ll possibly put on a sprinkler nozzle to keep the water lilies wet while the pond continues to empty. Can’t get all the muck out, but we can make it better.
I discover that I’ve been real remiss about taking pictures. This is before the new fence, the bushes are much taller, and there are 2 pergolas on the back porch that shield us from rain when we’re juggling keys and groceries. The back yard is our oasis of tranquility.
The lantern, btw, was a gift from Shejicon, and greatly treasured.
I remember the ceremony we had when we lit that lantern…
Question: do you know how many gallons the pond holds? How are you draining it, using a pump to get the water out? Where is the water going from there? Would be nice if you could somehow store some of it and use that in dry times, or as a supplement to the rain, what with the fishy nutrients in the water…..
We just pull the plug on the smaller filter and let it drain as it pumps; and ordinarily we direct the water onto the garden, but right now the ground is supersaturated, and the big tree you see in the picture does not need any more water. The water is a bit awful, too, and we’re just sending it elsewhere as runoff. It all goes to the Columbia, eventually.
@joekc6nlx — Joe, I don’t find your address in with my saved addresses, either on my computer or in my index card file. Also, my Shejidan PM boxes remain full. I’d thought I had your email, but it’s not showing in my address book either. — I’d like to send you my new street address. Do you have my email address? Sort for the inconvenience. 🙂
That is so beautiful. It’ll be wonderful when you have it drained, replenished and refurbished, and stocked with new koi. I knew nothing about koi, and the color patterns were remarkably lovely. The fishes’ behavior was even more of a surprise to me, though.
I’ve drained and mucked out a large pool before (more than once) and, ugh, is it an awful mess to do. Smelly. Lots and lots of “biologicals” happening in the muck and water.
I discovered the song, “Hotaru Koi” while looking for choral music. I don’t know the words; must resume looking at Japanese to learn. But there are several enchanting renditions on iTunes and presumably the same on Amazon’s music. One is by the American Boychoir; another is by the Nagoya Children’s Choir. Possibly when you’re both ready for such to listen to that won’t remind you too much of the lost fishes, you’ll enjoy the song covers.
I would like to suggest netting for fish ponds rather than bird netting. We found that the bird netting lasted two years at best, while the pond netting is going strong after five years. In fact I now use pond netting on the pool. We bought ours on line; can’t remember which company.
Proge was all set to install the pump and filter this week end. Instead Mother Nature had a snit fit and dumped five inches of snow on us on Friday with who-knows-what predicted for Tuesday.
We just got a couple inches of snow here just north of Boston but are also gearing up for a good dump (and blow) this Tuesday.
This weekend, I was going to rake the rest of the leaves on the patio and backyard in preparation for Spring but it’s cold out! Yesterday was frigid; today is merely chilly but I figured a trip out to the compost bin and amble around the yard was what I was up for outside. I’m inside now baking rice pudding and rising dough for a cinnamon shmear filled dessert bread.
My sister in Montreal said it was -18 C. there yesterday evening! She nixed going out at all.
We’re on track to thaw. Weather’s falling into a ‘spring’ pattern. I’ve been draining the pond 12 hours yesterday and 6 hours today and we’re still not done. It’s a passive flow drain, but still—that’s a lot of water. I think rock and water weight has made part of the pond deeper than we dug it, so we may be about 5000 gallons. I’ve got the hose working in the back yard and will be hosing things down to keep the sediment flowing to the pump. WE may fill and drain down again to try to get it as clean as possible.
please do document the whole process. I, for one, would enjoy seeing it.
Well, we are going to oblige. I have some pix of Jane, doing the worst of the work, which is getting the muck out of the wintering-over pit, where everything collects.
And of course—it’s raining, and everything we pumped out yesterday—is back. Thank you, Ben-Gay pain patches. Thank you, Advil.
But take some time to have some pie! Happy Pi Day! (None for me–this is my first semi-fasting day this week on the 2:5 diet.)
Drat, I forgot again that it’s Pi Day. Thanks, Paul!
LOL, Spence, I’m not sure if “enjoy” is the most fitting word there, but yeah, it would be interesting to see. However, we’d likely also see CJ and Jane in, ah, their “muckraking” mode, less than glamorous. ;D The audio might include colorful dockside verbiage in multiple languages. You know, very expressive and creative art form and evincing some peculiar holdovers from Anglo-Saxon, Norman French, mahensi dialects, hani back-country and metropolitan areas…. Hahaha.
Ahem. Yes, fertilizer, but directly out of the pond, it has a certain disagreeable, ah, fragrance for quite some time and…. (Yes, having mucked out a badly fouled pool more than once, I have personal memories of, ugh, just how personal that can get if you, for instance, stumble and land in same. Whoo-ee!)
:: grins :: Fortune and Chance, nadiin and nandiin.
We got started on the job—beyond the drain-down. This means going in and hauling out all the rocks that have slipped off the edge and all the muck contributed by two overhanging Japanese maples, a big red hawthorne, and four 40 foot firs or hemlocks or whatever they are. They shed needles and cones; the hawthorne sheds blooms, bloom husks, fruits, seeds and finally twigs and foliage—there is no season in which a hawthorne is not shedding. Jane is the one that gets to go down into the muck. I stand on the bridge and hand her things and listen sympathetically when she bounces a twenty-pound rock onto her ankle bone. I did find the auxiliary pump so we could clear some of the nastiness other than with a bucket.
Did I mention it’s raining?
One wonders if you might have been able to contract with one of the commercial venues that cleans out septic tanks. Put the business end of the hose into the pond, suck up the, er, particulates and as much of the filthy water as possible. Done in a day and probably much less vile. The only thing I might be concerned about is possible cross-contamination.
Off-Topic: I got an update on the move-in of my furniture: Either tomorrow (Tuesday) or the day after (Wednesday), but they need help, thus the uncertainty. Likely Wednesday, they said. Hah, what I wouldn’t do for an office chair!
Grumble: Several things wound up in storage, thus in a 3D jigsaw puzzle. Among them key kitchen items and the contents of my headboard, and therefore the books I was reading on and off, such as Fiinity’s End and Tripoint. And I long for these. Also, somehow, my jeans and a few other clothes, and “diverse and sundry” other items I did not think to put in with the “must-haves.”
A grocery and shopping trip is forthcoming, however. Also, the closing date is still on track. Therefore, although it’s a bit wobbly, all is well or will be soon.
Meanwhile, I’ve been making progress on fonts. Still not ready to make my first submissions, but making good progress toward goals, hitting milestones nicely, sometimes sooner than expected. I put in two rough drafts of ideas that are turning out better than I’d expected, which is good, since another font-family or two are stalled at present. So, mostly happy on this front too; I just wish I could get something really finished and ready for submission. Still, when you’re talking about a font-family, a series of several font-faces, it takes the time it takes. Once I’m surer of the development cycle, I’ll know better when I can submit drafts so things are in the pipeline. More news when I know more. I still have to wade through documentation on how the designer (or studio / foundry / atelier) and the vendor company go on the whole process, including payments. (It’s now more about sales, whereas in the old days, it was more like a novelist gets paid.)
I empathize with the mucking about. I hauled 14 trash bags of those %#*&^%$#@!@#$! locust beans and leaves from assorted trees out of the back yard Saturday. Muscles I haven’t used in a while are not happy with me. Still have the front bed to go. I’ve got pavers to buy for the back yard to put from the concrete “pad” that my sliding door opens out onto over to where the hose spigot is and pavers to buy for the front yard to get from the front porch to the spigot in front. I may buy some plants this month for the front bed. I want English lavender and some kind of blooming bushes to go against the wall. The front bed only gets sun in the morning half of the day, and runoff from the roof on two sides. There are two rose bushes in there now that will come out eventually and be replaced with the kind that bloom all the time and are lower to the ground. The bushes there now are “tea” roses and have black spot badly because of not getting enough sun and having wet feet for quite a while after it rains.
CJ, I wish you or Jane would do a narrated video tour of the fabulous Fancherry gardens, and post it somewhere so those of us who aren’t likely to be able to make Shejicon could see it. It would be so appreciated.
Ain’t yard maintenance fun? In preparation for my mom’s visit next week, I finished cutting back the huge plumeria that dominated the back yard. It will take at least 2 months to clear out the branches by breaking them down into a size that will fit our green waste can, which only gets picked up every other week. The bare space along the back fence is full of incompletely processed cuttings. One hopes the tree will grow back much bushier and less whippy.
I also mowed the lawn, which on a 10k square foot lot, took much longer than it should have. For the last 3 weeks it rained every 2-3 days, and the yard is under delusions of being a tropical rainforest, with knee deep weeds. Couch grass has invaded all the succulents, including the aloe; weeding them is a painful task. It looks much better now, and with a little spot maintenance, should be in good shape for upcoming weeks.
Chondrite, can you rent a chipper? You could probably chip all those plumeria branches in an afternoon and get a ton of good mulch for flower beds, paths, etc.
I looked into that, but the only place that will rent one is over $100 for a half day. Since I have already paid my semi-annual fee for rubbish collection, including green waste and recycling, I will stick with the more tedious but cheaper option.
It rained 2x more this week, and the lawn will not be repressed! I have to mow Sunday, because in the course of only 6 days it is shaggy again. Once before, I contemplated getting a goat, and now it looks tempting again.
Commentator oh CJ and Jane — so very sorry about the koi. I’ve been sidelined for a bit, but I remember you both planning and building the pond and it’s just awful thAt this happened