Ponds in Canada

[j.w]

Poor Colleen, you love the Spring and nice warmth of the sun but yet you are living up there in the cold for what....................how many months would you say that are not really comfortable for what you would like to be doing outside? Now wait when you think of it it's not that long is it? Does your really cold start in maybe Nov or Dec? If so then you have Nov,Dec,Jan, Feb and then I bet most times March is pretty mild right?So that is only 4 months you have to survive in and then you get to enjoy some nice hot temps for most all your Summer right and into Fall? It is coming Colleen..................veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrry sooooooooooooooon

 

[callingcolleen1]

Jw you are so sweet!

, spring will come, but right now it is hard core winter and pond has lots of ice this norning, in spite of the big 1500 watt heater. Next week it should not be as cold, but will still be below freezing all week as forcasted. Some past years I have had spring bulbs blooming by now!! On the bright side, hubby and I are going to the locl greenhouse to get seeding soil and other supplies.
Frozen by the pond this morning, but water still flowing under the ice from pond to pond.

 

[j.w]

Well at least just ice and not piles of snow

 

[morewater]

Can't even see my pond, or the waterfall for that matter. There's about 2.5' feet of snow covering the pond. Went out there this morning and stood on the pond, shoveled around the spot where the air stone lives, poured a kettle of hot water on the spot and......voila....bubbles. Tomorrow a.m. it's supposed to be -30C with the wind. Americans are the only ones still using the old F scale, it seems.

Ice is only good for drinks. It's also good for when you have too many beer and walk around the back of your truck and introduce your shin to your trailer hitch. Other than those two uses, ice is useless.

Spring is in 18 days......yeah....right. Did I mention that I also hate groundhogs (they lie).

 

[callingcolleen1]

Ha Ha Ha! I don't use ice in winter too much and drink my red wine at room temperture, and fat groundhogs are not to be trusted! It has warmed up a bit and snowing now, topped up the bottom pond with handy hose out the window. Planting more seeds as we speak.

 

[j.w]

Don't get caught growing the green up there Colleen. The N.W mounties have good noses ya know. I hear they always get there man or woman

 

[callingcolleen1]

Not to worry cause I am Just growing cukes. peppers, pansies, squash and alyssum right now. Otherwise I would just be asking for trouble... I will wait till eVerYbOdy is growing it, then they won't come steal mine!

 

[addy1]

lol or live way out so nobody can smell it or notice...........

 

[morewater]

If it doesn't warm up soon (as in by March 15th), I'm taking my Jiffy ice auger out on the pond, gonna drill a few holes, set up the Eskimo and jig me up a couple of Koi (catch and release, of course).

 

[callingcolleen1]

Wow! is your pond totally frozen over and no water moving for fish? Hope the fish are all fine morewater!

 

[morewater]

Yup, there's just this little dinky hole in the ice that the bubbles escape from. As long as there's a hole in the ice and air introduced under the ice, all the little buggers should be fine. I've never lost fish to winter.

Now, years back my youngest son (15 at the time), in mid-summer thought that the pond looked a little low, so put the garden hose in there to top it up. I got my coffee the next a.m. and went out to commune and thought to myself "Hey, it didn't rain last night. How come the pond is so full?". Then I saw the glints of gold and orange. All my Koi were todt (that's German for croaked). They were monsters and I had them trained to eat out of my hand. He offered to pay to replace them, but they were all $150+ each. Replaced them with smaller Koi.

I forgave my son, but he's now short a kidney.

 

[Alan G]

I would bet the winter weather up there can be hard to deal with in terms of ponds. I don't even have a pond heater, as I am in the southern US and only use certain fish. I wrote an article on what I consider to be the perfect pond fish, probably be great in Canada also. Perfect pond fish: http://mgeorge1050.hubpages.com/hub/pondfish

 

[j.w]

What killed them............chlorine or ?

 

[callingcolleen1]

wow Morewater, that must have hurt, losing those big fish, I woulb be freaked! Well at least all is well now and the kid still has another kidney! ha ha ha
Allen I used to have lots of minnows at one time, they were nice in the ponds and I used to like to see them jump up my connecting water ways from pond to pond. But as the koi grew over the years, the number of minnow slowly became less and less... They were there for years and years when I had mostly goldfish, and they are very winter tough and will self populate the ponds nicely. I kept them cause "a small eye see's the small sandfly"...

 

[morewater]

Colleen, I used to live in Alberta (Grand Centre, to be precise) after we moved back from Germany (Air Force brat).