Yep.
Our pond caught fire.
Jane came running into the house yelling. “Fire! Get out here!”
Remember how I said we were finally making progress on the spring algae bloom and I’ve tried so hard not to use chemicals this year, but to rely on the UV filters.
Cancel that. The redesigned (because they were catching fire) Savio UV caught fire. We have been so lucky on that. We’ve had 2 prior fires. Both times they started someone was in the garden working and caught it, and both times we were lucky enough to have the skimmer lid off. This one shot fire half a foot high and melted itself onto the skimmer, and tried to burn a hole in the 3″ hose that leads out of our skimmer to the waterfall—THAT would have been a pain. So would melting the skimmer itself, which is half of our pond kit and a big expense. No more UV filters. I’m going to have to engage in chemical warfare against the algae.
Chemicals can be beautiful. Catch Jane’s slide show. http://janefancher.com/HarmoniesOfTheNet
This also necessitated a trip to the pond store…and Jane found this very nice little baby koi, to replace one of her favorites that the eagle ran off with last year.
Do catch the slide show. It’s quite surreal.
Yikes! Glad you caught that. I guess it’s sort of a toss-up as to which is ultimately scarier, chemicals or fire, except the chemicals aren’t going to burn your house down. On a similar note, I smelled smoke a couple days ago, a minute before the alarm went off, and discovered my landlord had backed the riding mower up against an insulated blanket draped over the cart. I put it out with the dog’s water. Glad I was home for that, since I live over the garage, and she’d gone off somewhere after mowing…
Yikes! Glad y’all are OK! The koi and plants too.
It must be going around. Two days ago, I managed to let a pot of beans go dry, scorch badly. Lost the beans, the pot’s fine, but the smell’s finally gone today. I don’t usually burn dinner, darn it. And I still want some beans!
So that’s why the pond photos have biochem foam swirls.
Just glad you’re all OK.
That’s quite the accomplishment! How many people can catch a pond on fire? 🙂
Huh? And I thought only the Cuyahoga river in Ohio caught fire. That was years ago, though and I am sure Cleveland has fixed that problem… probably.
They have indeed. No more literally burning the bridges. Now there are restaurants along the river that are very pleasant places to have lunch or dinner.
Well, the ‘chemical’ treatment is at least fairly benign. We got some stuff from a UK company called Interpet that promises to remove (bind) one element that hair and string algae must have and the binding of which will not deprive the pond plants…or harm the fish. My guess is that among other things, it binds phosphates, which are VERY high in city water that comes from aquifers near farmland: hair algae in particular loves phosphate. Lilies can be happy with just nitrate from fish poo. It advertises it turns the water a bit milky—check—and kills algae. Well, something is happening. I’m having to change filters, washing out the used one, every 30 minutes since dawn. I also added some bacteria, again, non-toxic, that break down sludge, probably into nitrogen gas. This will get the bottom crud. I’ll believe it when it starts digesting it out of the filters.
The garden is beautiful this morning, tulips everywhere, peonies about to bloom, and lots of green. Iris is budding. The cherry is done for the season, ditto the apple tree. A few bees did arrive, so there may be apples.
And our waterfall is in disarray: we found the weight of rock and earth had pulled the hose back and warped the back frame, which was one leak source, and we have stopped that, but the back is dug out with cinder blocks sitting about: we just want to wait til it dries out before putting things back.
I got an autotopoff float-valve for the pond—a stock tank valve that will add water whenever the float drops. This will save work. I just have to figure how to install it so it will not wobble in the least.
But we love walking the paths and looking at our flowers. I recommend paths in the back yard, even if you have dogs and children. There’s something about folded space being larger than pacing the boundaries. Everybody should have paths, destinations within the garden, windings and hiding spots, sitting spots—oh, the number you could fit in most back yards. I’m not keen on having grass in the back yard. I wish I had had paths all my life. I am certainly enjoying these.
Everybody should have paths, destinations within the garden, windings and hiding spots, sitting spots—oh, the number you could fit in most back yards.
I have paths, and long grass, and bushes, much to the annoyance of one neighbour who wants everybody to have flat green bits – but if it were a flat green bit (I can’t say lawn, it would be mostly moss and weeds) I could walk across it in less than ten strides. Instead I have paths, and little islands of wildflowers, and bushes and bulbs I drop whenever I take out a weed – and I can take a different route through the garden every time I pass. My garden is a place I can _discover_ things in.
Sadly, my landlord isn’t too happy about it, either. I try to keep him mollified by cutting out paths and showing that I *do* garden… I just don’t mow.
Most infuriating thing today was reading the instructions on a packet of ‘bee and butterfly wildflower mix’ which says: ‘dig up the ground and use glycophosphate’. Err, doesn’t ‘kill all things’ kind of negate the idea of creating a wildflower meadow?
Glyphosate (it’s an organophosphorous compound but not an organophosphate) is recommended because you can spray and plant a week or two later. It doesn’t contaminate the soil and keep on killing.
What we do is start on the flat, then pile up little ‘islands’ on which to plant. We prefer groundcovers to mulch, but we have to start with mulch, or the sun just bakes things. But come winter, our mailman chooses to use our dry streambed for a path…hey, it works, til you get to the bridge.
My iPad doesn’t like the slideshow, but I finally got to watch part of it. Pretty cool. And your backyard looks great! I love the red bridge. And definitely paths. I grew up in the woods, and even though we only played on about two acres, it felt enormous because of all the discrete places to go. My friend had two acres of yard and we hardly ever played there because there was nothing to do.
This year my apple blossoms have been scant. From observation I suspect that the bluejays have been eating the buds. (We had no acorns last fall, which are a major food source.)
You know you’re a science fiction writer when you begin with ‘Today, the pond caught fire’.
I’m glad it was a relative non-event, but oh, my.
You know, I always wanted a pond.
You two have cured me of that insanity.
Just so you know.
Zette, it’s a learning curve. Once we perfect the method, we’ll let you know. OTOH, this new stuff may be working. We’ve got 8″ of clear water atop, and the clarity is working its way down. If it is working, and if we had had it at the outset, we would not be in this pickle.
Folded space, eh? Even more impressive than fire on the pond.