by CJ | Oct 31, 2009 | Journal
Our littlest, Rukia, that never grew much, that we tried specially hard to feed and help into her first winter. It was my fault, my inexperience. I saw her up swimming that one cold morning, and looking up the problem, found that it was a symptom of hypothermia:...
by CJ | Oct 9, 2009 | Journal
The scenario: a riot between foxes and coyotes was met with pepper spray and precipitated a urological crisis… Which is the way a bloodhound would read the neighborhood of our pond, between fits of sneezing. I used 2 products: Havaheart pepper compound, which...
by CJ | Sep 24, 2009 | Journal
We’ve discovered the pond area is a good 10 degrees cooler than the front yard. Amazing. Jane had bought a bunch of sale plants from Wayside Gardens end-of-season sale. They arrived looking pretty sad, but should perk up a bit with sunlight and TLC. Hostas,...
by CJ | Sep 24, 2009 | Journal
We’ve discovered the pond area is a good 10 degrees cooler than the front yard. Amazing. Jane had bought a bunch of sale plants from Wayside Gardens end-of-season sale. They arrived looking pretty sad, but should perk up a bit with sunlight and TLC. Hostas,...
by CJ | Sep 12, 2009 | Journal
I try to keep an ear to the pond when I’m near it, and with warm weather comes clogged filters. I heard the telltale pitch of the pump motor last night when I was going to bed, so nothing would do but go out there in the tatty red robe we use for hair dye and...
by CJ | Sep 7, 2009 | Journal
I’ve spent the last few days outlining to the end (after remembering what the end is, and relocating it); and simultaneously recovering the blown-up 72 generation, 40,000 person genealogy file, bit by painful bit… It’s funny. So much of the database...
by CJ | Aug 24, 2009 | Journal
It hadn’t cleared appreciably, and new green algae started growing. Arrgh!f This is where I put on my water chemistry hat and bite the bullet and get the (fairly expensive) phosphate remover. Or, as we say in the marine reef biz, don’t bother getting a...
by CJ | Aug 23, 2009 | Journal
The pond is still a murky mess, but the fish are eating, and doing well. They’re spooked because they can’t see in the murk, but they know our voices (try talking to your fish: “Here, fishie, fishie, fishie!”) and will come when called to eat....
by CJ | Aug 18, 2009 | Journal
I watered 4 sections of the back garden, 20 minutes a section, topped off the pond, cleaned the pond filter, adjusted the tank temp; wrote; did a little genealogy (recreation); and attempted for the 4th or 5th time that incredibly impossible form they want me to fill...
by CJ | Aug 17, 2009 | Journal
I did get some writing done, amid all the chaos, Lynn’s been working on Joomla! through two serious personal crises and says she’s really close to testing; we got the bug fixed and I ousted 2 spammers from our midst. If your user name is ILoseWeightAskMe,...
by CJ | Aug 14, 2009 | Journal
But I found them. Had lunch at Peking North and of course, deposited them on the bench seat instead of into my purse. It took me a while to figure this one out—and it was Jane who remembered this restaurant. We found a reasonable pond store locally. And ended up...
by CJ | Aug 11, 2009 | Journal
Writers are delicate creatures. I can’t work well when taking antibiotics, when stressed, when on painkillers, etc. And the load of stress is slowly easing. The pond is so much help in this I can’t express—just the sound of the water, our funny...
