Heard Our First Tree Frog in the Pond



Amazing what you can do with a little effort and a generous amount of serendipity. By connecting a 1/4" reducer to a pump output, I was able to create a spitter jet. By anchoring the jet under a bit of cement, and putting a nicely rounded stone in front of it, we were able to create a fine spray that not only aerates the water for the fish, but also looks absolutely awesome when combined with a blue light (pumps and lights together take up about as much collective energy as a ceiling fan).

Heard a single Tree Frog in the pond towards evening. Sounds like he might be using the aluminum siding to amp up his mating call. Though it's the first Gray Tree Frog we've ever heard in the pond, if his amped-up mating call is successful, it definitely won't be the last.

Wildlife Spotted this Week:

• Baltimore Oriole
• Black-capped Chickadee
• Cottontail Rabbit
• Eastern Chipmunk
• Goldfinch
• Gray Tree Frog
• Green Frog
• Junebug
• Mourning Dove
• Nuthatch
• Robin
• Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Native Plants in Bloom this Week:

• Canadian Anemone
• Columbine
• Harebell
• Rue Anemone
• Spiderwort
• Swamp Buttercup

On Filters

We've not had the best luck with filters to date. When we first started work on the pond back in 05, we bought a $150 plastic pressurized bio/mechanical filter with a built in UV light to control the algae. About a year ago, the output nozzle snapped off, and though that was repairable with a bit of liquid weld, most of the clamps fell off this spring, the seal failed, and the UV fixture was fried by a power spike.

Just this week, we removed the old filter, and replaced it with a simpler, unpressurized one. Hopefully it removes the rust from the water just as well, as the old filter (along with a little Accuclear) was doing a bang-up job. We could have gotten the same sort of replacement, of course, but I figure that this way, we won't be putting all our eggs in one basket.

General filtering plan:

• Mechanical/mechanical filter to get out the rust&fish waste
• Plants to suck up the nitrates&cool the pond (thus preventing algae)
• Barley/Cotton pads to clarify the water and control ph
• Fish and snails to control algae
• Possibility of a UV clarifier to do the same

Images from the Garden












Birds spotted:

• Baltimore Oriole
• Black-capped Chickadee
• Blue Jay
• Crow
• Eastern Bluebird (three chicks counted)
• Grackle
• Mourning dove
• Nuthatch
• Oriole
• Red-headed Woodpecker
• Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Other Wildlife Spotted:

• American Toad
• Chipmunk
• Green Frog
• Grey Squirrel
• Raccoon

Natives in bloom:

• Canadian Anemone
• Columbine
• False Indigo
• Harebell
• Prairie Ninebark
• Rue Anemone
• Swamp Buttercup

Non-natives in Bloom:

• Fuschia
• Tuberous Begonia

Things I should have considered when I originally built the pond:

• How to do it all with one piece of tarp
• Where all pumps, accessories, power cords, and hoses would go, and how they would be rigged and concealed.
• How I planned to hide the pond tarp (on the rebuild, I excavated a submerged shelf for boulders).
• How to better integrate it with the patio/deck/surrounding landscape
• The specific needs of wildlife that might be interested in it (frogs that require oxygen-rich water for hibernation)
• Learned more about fish. Turns out that, given the correct circumstances, you can add a number of fish to your pond, including minnows, guppies, and swordtails.

Major Overhaul

About a year ago, we tried to merge our first plastic basin pond with a rubber liner pond I'd just put in. To this effect, I dug a trench for a stream, cut a channel in the plastic with my jigsaw, and bolted and caulked the two together.

The thing leaked like a sieve, and no amount of caulk, expanding foam, or overlapping liner would stop it. Figuring it had something to do with the expansion and contraction of the plastic pond under the heat of the sun, I ripped out the plastic pond, and replaced it with a rubber liner, and sealed it with some industrial glue and caulk. While there was less leaking, I was still losing over two inches a day, which over an 18'X5' pond is a pretty major deal.

This spring, we used a putty knife to strip the glue and caulk, and used seam tape as recommended, and when that failed, put a lining of reinforced cement underneath and over the liner (trimming the liner so that the cement bonded in the middle). This cement sandwich was treated with a birdbath-type finish we got at a statue shop up in Nisswa.

When this failed, Amanda suggested we just buy one large liner for both ponds. Which is probably what we should have done in the first place. On the upside, barring holes or tears, this almost gauruntees no leaks, and allowed me to do a bit more landscaping, adjusting the grade of the soil so that the liner will be easier to hide under boulders, and digging a much deeper stream. On the downside, it meant removing the 500 lbs of cement we'd spent a weekend pouring into the stream. This was achieved over two days with a shovel, a 20 lb sledge, and a 60 year old pry bar.

In all, this gained us around four inches of stream, to which I added another 6-7 inches, not only to give the fish more breathing room when swimming it and keep the water a bit cooler (preventing algae and evaporation) but also to even out the depth between the ponds, giving me a bit more leeway with the new liner.

So, on the downside, the pond is gong to need a major overhaul. On the upside, we've added a basin fountain/planter and another waterfall, this one built from a layer concrete reinforced with chicken wire we poured on top of a liner. We lined it with rocks from the property in Stillwater, and a pile of granite cobbles we picked up on sale at Menards, filling the rest out by shaping the drying cement to look like stones. We then sealed it with two layers birdbath sealer, and it appears to be holding quite well. The basin fountain was much simpler. Just a hole covered with two layers of liner and more cobblers strategically positioned to hold dirt. Bought a fountain with a 3/4" lotus-shaped sprinkler head, then used a diverter with a valve that spurts into the basin (built some rocks up around it to make a pleasant splashing noise), since most of the water's being shot through the valve, the remaining water sporadically "leaps" from the sprinkler head in a really interesting way.

So, as a weekly to-do list, I still have to do the following to get the yard in shape (in no particular order):

• Add the new liner (this week)


• Add submersible accent lights to the pond


• Add a motion-sensitive light to the deck


• Add accent lights to the deck


• Landscape the front yard (6x6's and a short split-rail fence along the corner)


• Finish the boardwalk around the backside of the pond


• Add latticework along the boardwalk


• Add lights to the boardwalk


• Hook the lights and pumps up to switches and timers


• Put latticework along the deck


• Get the remaining chunks of the plastic basin pond basin out to the garbage
  
• Mount the remaining peanut feeder
  
• Mount the bat house

Currently in Bloom:

• Columbine


• Prairie Smoke


• Rue Anemone

Birds Spotted in Garden:

• Red-bellied Woodpecker


• Nuthatch


• Black-capped Chickadee


• Eastern Bluebird (two expecting couples)


• Goldfinches

Signs of Spring

Nothing much in bloom yet with the exception of the Pasque Flowers (which are coming up in clusters), but the Columbine and the Prairie Smoke are both coming up in clumps.


Birds observed in garden in the past week:

• Black-capped Chickadee
• Eastern Bluebird
• Goldfinch
• Hairy Woodpecker
• House Finch
• Mourning Dove
• Nuthatch
• Scarlet Tanager
• Song Sparrow

Photos from the latest Blizzard