What is your weather like ... today

[CountryEscape]

Looks like we are going to have upper 60's and low 70's this week. Sunny today, and then rain for 3 days ... Mother Nature is promising this time that I will get a good amount!!! I need it, so I'm hoping and praying for long steady rain for 3 days. :blueflower: Curtains open to let the sunshine in today. Weekend looks to be sunshine and cooler temps, but I'll take sunshine anytime, no matter the temps!
Congrats on birthdays and anniversaries, Lou and Cathy, and MtPond, too! :bdaybiggrin: :banana: :claphands: That's so very awesome!!! Very happy for you all. I know Sissy is right up there with years married, too, with you other couples. I'm so very impressed.

 

[CountryEscape]

Just read back a few pages. Sissy, when I get ready to retire, I'm going to let you know, so you can watch for a house in your area for me to buy and fix up! We can have coffee together, and you can show me how to do things I probably don't know how to do! I'll even pay you to help. LOL I would love to move and find property and a small house to fix up totally, and of course build a new pond. Just never know ... it may be sooner rather than later. Wait, I have to age a few more years before I can afford to retire, but at the rates you're talking, maybe sooner should be better than later! Wow!!! And, down side of buying a house that has already been fixed up, is that I didn't get to do any of the remodeling. My house needs new kitchen cabinets and nicer flooring, and I should do that now, rather than wait until I want to sell it, but just prefer spending money outside instead. LOL

 

[j.w]

Me too CE I'll take sun even if the temps are lower which is what we are having right now. Sun and up to only 57 today but the big word is SUN :banana:
Hardly had any sun while we were camping up in Birch Bay. Lots of fog but took bike rides inland east and found the sun so all was not lost. Now we are home and lots of sun,go figure :dunno:

I wonder which states have the lowest prices for nice homes? I think Nevada has lower prices and in Detroit you can buy a house for $1 so they say but they are all dilapidated and boarded up! We lived in Pontiac,Mi. back in the 80's for a couple yrs and drove to Detroit to see the sights and some parts looked like a war zone. Very sad.

 

[sissy]

yep ce been 40 years and keeping him alive has been hard work ,I told him he is not escaping me that easy :cheerful: Was sunny out this morning and now looks like rain ,but did get a truckload of mulch and mulched 3 of the gardens and will have to get more .I paid 89 thousand 10 years ago for a modular home and 3 acres of land and basement and house is 2440 sq. ft..my taxes are about a thousand a year .Here you can buy even more house now than I have for around 60 thousand .But thing is not many jobs unless you are in the health care field or retired .If you go on the HUD sight you can find HUD certified homes for dirt cheap ,like the one I am looking at and it comes with a 2 thousand dollar fix up allowance you do not have to pay back as long as you stay in the house for 2 years .They just want them off the tax loss for the counties .Sad how many houses are empty and if they just lowered the prices they would sell .

 

[callingcolleen1]

I want to retire move down south too with you CE and Sissy, and see what it like down there! Unfortunately in the real world, I know I am dug in with the ponds and rocks and all my friends and family here would miss me and I would miss them too....

The weather here is just awful! The day before I was wearing shorts for Pete's sake!! Right now it is only 25 degrees and going to only 20 degrees Fahrenheit tonight, and yesterday we had a horrible Blizzard all day and real cold too! Most of the snow melted when it hit the ground thank goodness, but the little front yard pond is froze over with about half inch of ice. The little minnow that are still in there will great rescued tomorrow cause that is my day off.

The three main connecting ponds in back side yard, still have no ice, cause much larger body of water holds it's temperture better' plus the pumps are running. Won't get the heater out just yet, no need cause there is no ice. The fish look very good in the top pond, dispite the cold weather, although they are not moving very fast.

 

[sissy]

gosh not sure I would like the short summers there colleen .Still wearing shorts here and not going to be cold until saturday again only up in the mid 50 's by then but in the 70;s all week

 

[CountryEscape]

I helped my sister and her husband "winterize" their pond in WI. OMG, it was nothing but "I don't think that will work", and "I think that's going to freeze and break" and "the fish will get too cold if you keep the bubbler running" ... it went on and on! I drove 5 hours to "help" them, and then get argument each time I suggested what to do! In the end ... yep, I got my way, and the fountain/bubbler is the only thing running. Well, I wanted to keep the bog running, but my BIL was certain the line would freeze since it comes out of the water over the bog edge and back into the bog. I tried to convince him, as long as the water was running, it would not freeze, but he had nothing to do with that!
Does anyone have the Laguna Skimmer and Laguna big box Waterfall with filter pads? They thought they were going to seal off the front of the skimmer, and drain all the water! I suggested they just shut it off, pull the pump out (which the guy buried the electric cord, so all we could do was pull the pump, wrap it in a couple of bags, and leave it there, which is fine, it's empty of water ...) and lave the water in. Need to have something to hold it in place, or it will float and then blow away! So, now BIL is worried that the waterfall box, which is only sitting in about 4" of water (yep, about how deep the ice will be, my guess) is going to crack and break. I told them to call Laguna and find out what they say. But, IMO, if that waterfall filter box was up on a rock wall, buried in, there is NO WAY you could get the box out of there and bring it inside. I think they will be fine if they freeze, but didn't take ANY responsibility, told them to call and find out. I sure hope I'm right, cause I'm not spending another $100 and 10 hrs of driving to come help them again. Geesh ... if you don't know how your pond is put together, you deserve to have problems with it, and they WILL!!!
Oh, and my original suggestion was to keep EVERYTHING running. All lines are inside the pond or in the water, except from the skimmer to the waterfall (which is why I said good idea to shut them off). And, since they buried all the cords, they couldn't even bring the UV light inside! Had to take the bulb out of the casing, and leave the electric cord in a bag outside. I told her to unbury the cord next year, then just cover it with mulch so she can take it inside. "Oh no, I don't want any cords showing EVER!" Ok, then why did you ask me to come help you??? :banghead3:

 

[callingcolleen1]

Ha Ha Ha! I see you have an "extra lovely" sister too! Good to know I am not the only one that has this problem. I just took my sister fish out of her pond early October cause she couldn't be bothered with them anymore... at least that time we didn't have an argument.
I don't have a UV light or Skimmer box, but the plastic in some of those boxes is not flexable and could bust if frozen. Not sure about the Laguna filter box, maybe they made it flexable, best to scoop the water out now as much as possible just in case.

 

[j.w]

Brrrrrrrrrrr, it's 28 here right now and I'm still twice as warm as you Colleen and CE is twice as warm as me!
Forgot to bring in the water timer that allows water to fill my pond each day..............oops on my way out there right now to see if I did a whoops uh oh moment!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes, and this sudden cold weather has depressed me, going to get a McDonalds breakfast right now, Egg and sausage Mcmuffin, and a coffee. The coffee at McDonalds tastes better than Tim Hortons now, heard they got the coffee bean contract and beat out Timmy's!! I knew the coffee had changed at Tim Hortons cause the taste was off a few months ago. Plus McDonalds breakfast still uses real fresh egg and nice fatty sausage patty! Yum, saturated Fat is now good for you, just ask the Swedish!!!

 

[JohnHuff]

Woke up with frost on the cars outside, for the first time, this morning.

 

[sissy]

Well almost 6 pm and still 56 and got up to 75 today but cooler temps this weekend .7 new babies I have counted some less than half inch long

 

[rebelangel_3733]

We've had frost here 4 times in the past week and a half...finally got the new furnace put together and it works just in the nick of time I'm thinkin. Put new batting around the bubbler and lowered it just above the water as I'm going to leave it running this winter...and or see how it goes with that and a heater. Haven't shut off the waterfall/diy filter yet, but it's still in the 50's during the day so may just wait and see on that one, but will have to shut it down I'm sure anyway in the next month. Still have to cut my lotus and set them farther down in the pond, but it seems the frost's we've had hasn't affected them "yet". Worked on some xmas lights last night and when we plugged them in (they are all around the house on top) one 1/2 of the house blew out....fuse...figured we cant string all together and had to half and half them into different outlets...lots more xmas lights to do so this should be fun with outlets!

 

[sissy]

Frost does not really effect things in water as fast as long as during the day the water warms up .I get led christmas lights but never put many up here .I wait until the end of the season to buy them for the next year .I used to put them up on the front porch and around the pond .

 

[CountryEscape]

My huge elephant ear in the pond bog wilted big time in the hard frosts we had last week. But, the lilies are still fine looking, no wilting going on since then are on the water.
It got up pretty warm again today, tomorrow 70 or so, but rain finally started this evening. I'm hoping this light steady rain lasts for 3 days ... REALLY!!!
I don't know how you guys keep a pump running in the winter with all that batting around it to keep out stuff. I guess I figure that the batting will get clogged with stuff attached to it, and the pump won't be able to pull any more through. BUT, that being said, my pump in the skimmer box is barely running. I think the pump is fine, but the line is clogged. Going to blow it out this weekend, see if that helps. Sure can't be pulling pumps out of skimmer boxes during winter when the water is freezing cold! If I can't keep it running, it's no big deal, just unplug. I will have a bubbler in each pond, and heater to help keep opening when it gets really cold. May shut down the waterfall, too, just so not cooling water more than necessary.
This weekend will be my "fall cleanup" weekend, going to cut off all plants that died in the frosts, and just tidy things up. Lots of my yard "art" gets put away for the winter, too. Going to leave the solar lights out, though. Love to see them! Floating ball will have to be put away, though.