Pond in the foothills

[callingcolleen1]

That's Canada for you, we had a moose on the loose in town here too, they finally rounded her up cause she was causing too much havoc on the town!

 

[j.w]

What neat pictures of the moose Mitch! We have deer but a moose could really do some damage if it felt like it. Hope it doesn't decide it likes the taste of your plants or wants to take a dip in your pond!

 

[Craig58]

When canoeing in MN and up into the Canadian Quetico we often saw moose in the shallow areas of the many lakes there. They would often be in 3-4 ft deep water and then duck their heads all the way under the water to get the plants. Evidently they like new shoots under the water the best. I don't know exactly what they will graze on but it was not an uncommon sight on my trips there. I would be concerned if they started frequenting a pond with a liner as I'm sure their hooves and weight could do a lot of damage if they decided to wade in.

I'd keep an eye on Mom and calf!

Craig

 

[sissy]

Welcome Mitch that moose is pretty but thinking i will stay with the deer I have .Wholly rocks we are all drooling right now :razz: :luxlove: rock lovers here

 

[MitchM]

Thank you sissy!

The moose and her calf came and ravaged our fruit trees the night before I took that picture. After the pond visit I sprayed all the trees with a deer repellent, basically reconstituted cows blood...(yuck).
I haven't seen any deer or moose since. I don't like to spray that stuff until the bears go into hibernation because it makes the yard smell like an abatoire! Luckily it snowed shortly after and the bears are asleep for the season now.
We actually did have a small deer walk across our pond the other day when the pond was only half frozen...don't know what I'd do if I had a deer fallen through the ice!

sissy, you could always come and help me lift some of the rocks - then you could take some home on the plane with you! Airlines don't charge much for excess baggage these days do they?

Mitch

 

[sissy]

gosh bears and blood I guess do not mix well .I know here they spray fruit trees some times with vinager and they have one product they sell at tractor supply that smells like rotten eggs that I spray with but can't remember the name as I have not needed it lately .Since neighborhood got built up deer don't seem to come as close .I make them a neast in the woods of straw and put salt blocks and a water trough for them

 

[MitchM]

I'm noticing some bubbles forming in the open area around the heater. They started out clear but now they've turned green.
I'm guessing that sunlight is reaching down into the water, causing the algae to produce O2, which rises to the surface, where algae is growing in the bubbles and producing the green colour.

 

[CountryEscape]

Just found your thread, Mitch. What a wonderful pond you have built! That would have been quite the struggle moving a 50x50' liner all by yourself! I moved mine alone, too, but was not nearly as large. I'm also very envious of anyone who can pick up "free" rocks! I would drive 20 miles to get free rocks in a heartbeat! I just need to go find some in local creeks, just don't have any creeks on my own property.
Love the Canada landscape. How wonderful it must be to be able to say that size is not a problem, you have plenty of room?!
The moose pics (I know, you posted them back in November ...) were amazing! I, too, would worry about her going into the pond this summer, to check out the plants and cool off. Here, I need to worry about my dogs going out on the ice to get a drink, and falling in, and there you have to worry about a moose! Oh my goodness!!! BTW, I also made a shelf on both ponds, so if the dogs did fall in, they could climb out. What I didn't take into consideration was when the ice formed all the way around, and the only hole was out past the shelves. Lost a cat couple of months ago, and pretty sure he fell into the pond, got fished out by my dog. If wildlife sees your water open, and no other lakes have open areas for drinking, you too may have a problem sometime. Just thought I'd throw that out there for you to consider. Hopefully you will never have that problem.
I'm also wondering if bears come close to your house as well. Since you mentioned them, I'm guessing the answer is yes! Do you live in a very remote area, or is that just common in your area? I love the idea of living with nature like that!!!

 

[MitchM]

Thank you, CE!
The liner wasn't actually all that difficult. It came in a roll, wrapped with felt, so no holes from transport. I moved it to a corner of the pond with my tractor, unrolled it and the way it was folded, it worked out well.
The rocks are definitely a bonus. Where we live, there are a number of gravel pits ~ 20 miles, because of ancient glacier activity, and if we dug down about 60 feet, we would find enough to open our own gravel pit. With all the construction in this part of the province, gravel for cement construction is in high demand.
We do have a lot of room here, we are on a plot of 160 acres, of which 1 acre is cleared for the natural pond and 1 acre is cleared for our building site. We have no plans to log any of the rest (spruce, poplar and pine).
Lots of wildlife - deer, elk, moose, cougar, bear (black and grizzly), fox, coyote, wolves. We are on the edge of straight forest that leads to the Rocky Mountains (about 20 miles west of us) We actually lost one of our dogs this past fall to a bear or cougar. :sad: , about 85 yards from our front door. It was a valuable lesson learned that the night belongs to the forest. I wouldn't wish that experience on my worst enemy. (not that I have any)
Other than that one bad experience, the wildlife keep their distance to just outside our cleared area. I think the wildlife avoids confrontation as much as they can. A short walk into our forest, and you see droppings of all kinds. I know they are watching us. (not a bad thing)

Are we remote? I guess that depends on what you consider remote. Our nearest neighbour is 1/2 mile away, and we haven't seen our other further away neighbours in about 6 years. There is a bit of scattered cattle ranching around us, a bit of Timothy wheat, mostly forest and it gets busy around here during hunting season. People usually camp at the end of our driveway to venture into the forest to hunt. We stay inside during hunting season now because of poachers. When I confront them, they usually run, but why take a chance?
It must take the adventure out of hunting when my wife used to drive out of our place in her Subaru past them and their campfire to go to work.

The pond open water is a concern, but I have a plan in mind this winter if any wildlife falls in - I have seen videos of people rescuing deer and elk from lakes with a rope and winch, both of which I have ready if needed. I keep a close eye on our adult dog and new puppy whenever I am out with them. Otherwise, they are inside. Next winter I am going to change the location of the pond heater.

 

[CountryEscape]

Today, I saw a sparrow eying the goldfish pond hole that was open. I then realized it was not only my animals, but wild animals as well. Found a skunk dead in my yard about a month ago, and thought maybe it got hit by a car. Neither of my dogs smelled, so wondered how it died? I just NOW realized maybe it also fell into the pond, died from cold, and my dog fished it out as well. Both that and the house cat (that loved being outside as much or more as inside) were found not far from the pond. I sure don't want to be responsible for animals and birds dying because I'm teasing them with open water. I now fill a bowl with water twice a day by the bird feeder.
That's really exciting to have all that wildlife in your back yard! I would love to see them, but since I never see them in the wild, I would be somewhat afraid of confronting them if I went for a walk in the woods. I'm not much of a fraidy cat, but meeting up with a cougar or bear might change my mind! Closest I've come to wildlife is seeing 2 bobcat kittens about half grown, along a road. Stopped and watched them for several minutes before they high tailed it to the woods.

 

[brandonsdad02]

Wow, your pond is ginormous!!!! I'm very jealous. I have been able to score some free rocks as well. We have a large field behind our house that I just go walk in after a heavy rain to see what new rocks have been exposed and our friends live out in the country and have 23 acres. They have a field that has been farmed for years so there is a pile of rocks all along the edge of the field. They said I could have as many as I wanted.

Keep the pictures coming. Love to see them.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I see you still have very thick ice Mitch, that thick chuck of ice may take a while to melt. Did the hole in the ice get bigger today? Are you getting much sun on that big pond these days?

 

[MitchM]

Lots of sun, not much melting. That picture was taken about 1 week ago, in our last cold snap. The hole is probably about 4 feet across now. It looks like we have another week ahead of above freezing temperatures coming.

 

[MitchM]

Posted this in another thread, but would like to add here too.

I hung a small powerhead (Hagen 804) through the heater opening last night and it brought down the bottom water temperature from +38.8F to +35.4F.
I was surprised what a difference a small powerhead could make.

 

[callingcolleen1]

You should be more concerned about the quality of the uncirculated water and large cover of ice than the cold water. Cold water has never killed my fish in over 22 years, but I know many people who killed their fish off when they left the water uncirculated and a thick covering of ice. See what happens when the temperature rises, the fish breathe faster, and this could mean breathing in more toxic gases because the water quality drops when water not moving. Not to mention fungas can start to grow if pond is in the dark for too long!

If you leave the pump going and bring the water level up your ice will melt quicker.
My fish grow fast in the spring after a good long winter nap, and all the pond plants come back to life in the spring very quick. if you look at my other thread "ponds in Canada" and read from the beginning, you will see how my pond comes back to life so nice and early each spring, instead of waiting forever for the ice to melt to see "what happened" underneath all that ice.

Below you see a couple very early spring pictures from March I believe.