Ponds in Canada

[callingcolleen1]

I understand JW, I will be busy soon too with the yard, planting and builting a new fence soon. Every time I get a couple days off the weather turns ugly, had last weekend off but it was a hurricane of wind and that kept me inside mostly. As soon as I get some nice days to work outside without my fingers freezing off or the wind blowing dust in my eyes and up my nose, I too we then be very busy in the yard.

My favorite sister is mad at me again, any little thing sets her off and she is so touchy and screams horrible profanities and swears up a storm, and I can't handle her mean mouth, so she is not talking to me again.... she needs to go for help for all her deep past issues that I believe have made her this way.

Then my other sister that is a hard core raw vegan, want's to talk to me again, but I am not sure about her, she too drives me up the wall when she starts trying to convert me to a vegan, and she too screamed horribly at me for allowing her 13 year old daughter to have a piece of pie with me and grandma, the pie was not "raw vegan" approved! The kid has not seen her only grandma since .....and she is still sneaking out with her own money she had made, buying "normal food" and everybody in the family and friends know this, but somehow I got caught allowing her a piece of pie. That was three years ago and I have not spoke to her in person or on the phone since. Now my niece is 16 and still eating the food she wants, you can't force someone to be vegan if they don't want to be vegan! But now she is trying to talk with me again on facebook, but I don't know, she is really REALLY strange and weird.....

I hope you make out better with your family...

 

[j.w]

I think you are just stuck w/ them the way they are Colleen. My sis and I did not grow up together as I have said I was adopted out and she wasn't. So I did not find my sister till I was about 22. It is weird tho cuz we have a lot in common even tho we weren't together. Since we did not get the time to grow w/ each other we cherish the time we have and it will be so nice to have her up here closer to me.

 

[callingcolleen1]

JW You are lucky to have a good relationship with sister. I think lots of factors affected my family, hopefully one day I can have a better relationship with them. I know it is comon to fight with siblings, and I still love them cause they are my sisters and we were close going up. She will come around and quit being mad, she always does, but it hurts me when we fight.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I took these pictures of the top pond the other day, was really sunny and nice, you can see deep down three feet to the bottom of this pond. The soft green walls of algae are nice a wavy, not too long, and the bottom is swept clean by the big pumps and sucked into the filters. The sun was so bright that there was no reflection and you can see really good deep down, except later I took the last picture and the sun was gone and the reflections were starting to appear again.

This is from the top pond....

 

[addy1]

looking great there Colleen! nice and clean. I have some muck to clean out, in the deep end one pile collected, just have too many other must do projects right now.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Thanks Addy! Since I put the underwater lights in, you can sure tell if there is any floating guck as they show up very very well at night! I don't have any guck left in the top two ponds as the bigger pump has washed it all down to the bottom pond and then sucked into the big filter. This new bigger pump that I hooked up last week has really done a good job! I still have a wee bit left in the bottom pond, but I have to be careful as the hornwort is laying there too.

 

[j.w]

I know I have gunk and maybe a bunch of that Anacharis on the bottom I threw in there last Summer. Don't know if it made it through the fish eating it all up or if it's all just a pile of muck down there now. I'll have to make myself go out there and do some netting soon to see what's going on down there. If it's all gone I'm not getting anymore cuz it's just not worth the effort trying to keep it alive in there from those ravenous fish! I do have some in other containers around the property. It's still alive is all I can say right now. We'll see if it really starts growing well or not.

 

[callingcolleen1]

JW, just three months ago I still had huge amounts of hornwort, but now every day there is less and less, as the fish really eat lots of it this time of the year. In the top two ponds that have KOI, there is next to none left, and big funny green poops lay on the pond floor. I scouped out a bunch of the green poop from the top pond where the biggest KOI are, they did have a very big bunch of hornwort a couple months ago .... but now it is gone from that pond.

The bottom pond still has less than half left, but that should be more than enough to get it growing again, plus I have lots in the house fish tanks and I need to take some outside. They always eat lots of it each spring, that is why it is important to keep some in the house, in a jar or tank, just in case they eat it all up!

 

[j.w]

They are just pigs aren't they? Starving from the long winter!

 

[callingcolleen1]

New immigrants just moved in!! Come check out their "yellow skin"!! I got them to be "love slaves" for the goldfish from the middle pond, the "guys" there said it was a long cold winter and a couple big nice new females would be nice.... so right now my goldfish are chasing the big yellow females already! I wanted the two big yellow goldfish cause my goldfish are mainly deep red and white and the babies are still black.

The fish are swiming so fast this evening that it was hard to get a good pictures without them looking bury.

 

[j.w]

Pretty fishies! I have some little tiny ones that color that must have came from a spawn in the pond. Waiting to see if they stay that color or change. I enjoy the variety of colors in fish in a pond. Spice of life thing ya know?

 

[addy1]

Nice looking Colleen, they will make pretty babies. I have some fish that are brown upper bodies, with a gold belly. Neat looking no clue what created them! Not the black of an unchanged goldfish.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Addy, Sounds like they are in the process of slowly changing to red or orange. My babies from last year are much bigger than some the still tiny "feeder" goldfish that came from the pet store last year and the year before. I got tiny feeder goldfish from the pet store last year to put out in the front yard pond, cause nobody wanted to "volunteer" to go from the big beautiful bottom pond. The year before I rescued lots of little starving feeder goldfish from the mean petstore cause some Big Bad Blue Heron cleaned me out of lots of big goldfish two years ago. I strung up more twine again this year high above the ponds (from trees to house) and dangled mini solar lights off the twine. I am going to replace the strips of worn cloth with bright twisy thingy dingys that spring in the wind from the dollar store instead, to go with the rest of my garden junk! I don't care if it looks like "Christmas, with all the solar lights, the junk is going to stay to keep the big blue heron out!!

Fish were happy and swimming around really fast and having a big wild orgy in the middle pond since I got the two big yellow colored females... we shall see if they stay that yellow color ....

 

[callingcolleen1]

I also just wanted to let anybody know out there, if you are having trouble with spring smear algae rising, this year I got rid of mine just by switching to a bigger pump and extending the filters! They type of underwater filter I have can be extended by hooking another filter to it. So better filtration and additional water circulation with the bigger pump made a big difference for me. When I first hooked up that bigger pump, I increased the flow from the bottom pond to the middle pond. Now I have twice the flow of water going in there. The top pond already has two big pumps and filters pumping water from the middle pond to the top.

But look at the much clearer water that I now have. The koi are also busy eating all the algae from the sides of the pond with their big mouths. Koi can really take care of string aglae fast!

Sissy, I got the coffee on! JW, CE, and Addy can have a glass of wine or tea, everybody welcome, Puggle can have a beer, and Capewind can have coffee or tea or wine, I got something to drink for everybody, if I forgot to mention you come anyway, everybody welcome! Hurry, Pond Party in Canada, and I will wear my new long flowing summer party dress!!
Wouldn't that be nice to have a party by the pond all together!! We could take turns having pond party's!!

 

[MitchM]

Looking good, Colleen! If you were in Calgary, your house would definitely be a hit on the Hort Society tour!