Thursday, April 1, 2010

It's Pond Cleaning Time

Today at 11am I started spring break. Even better, here in Wisconsin we broke weather records as temperatures soared into the low 80's. No April Fool's here! It was a beautiful sunny day. A perfect day to clean out the small pond I have in the yard.

Cleaning out the pond in spring is never fun. I don't know if cows break into my yard in the winter and confuse my pond for an outhouse, but that's exactly what it smells like. Believe me, I live in Wisconsin I know the smell of cow manure. In fall when we take the fish out, we also use a small sump pump to siphon out most of the water. So the water that is in the pond is from snow over the winter. One of the many trees in my yard also seems to drop all of it's leaves right into the pond. So as I am trying to rake the leaves out of my pond I feel like I am stirring a giant pond's worth of witches brew. A song we used to sing in elementary school at Halloween goes through my head "Stirring and stirring and stirring my brew O-o-o-o-o, o-o-o-o-o". I never know what will surface when stirring up leaves. Last year it was two dead chipmunks. Plus the pond freezes solid in winter, and seems to mummify anything enveloped inside the pond. This year I didn't find any dead chipmunks, but I did find a lot of garden spiders and giant caterpillars that looked very much alive but once out of the pond for a few minutes shriveled up to dry husks.

Unfortunately my pond filter was pronounced dead this afternoon. Last year chipmunks chewed through the cord, but we rewired it and it worked fine. However this year it wouldn't even power on. My dad, who is an electrician, even stopped over to try to help to no avail. So guess we'll be adding that to our shopping list.
Here I am stirring my brew. Do you like my Wisconsin tan?
All the leaves I pulled out of pond today.
Now it's really starting to feel like summer is near!


5 comments:

Sandy said...

You have my sympathy! Ours is all cleaned out, but sometime in the last winter it has developed a slow leak. We think maybe a big dog got into it and put a claw thru the liner. So now we have to find it! Aargh!

DawnK said...

It WAS a beautiful day and we spent the afternoon in Oshkosh, so we got to enjoy the 80-degree temps, too, even though we really live close to the lakeshore. We picked up my daughter from college, ate lunch, shopped at Apple Blossom Books, and went to Old Navy for new flip-flops. Then we finally went home.

Glad you got your pond all cleaned out. That looks like a dirty job. Rewarding yourself with bratwurst was a good idea. We had brats for supper, too. Mine didn't last long.

Honestlyblonde said...

I know what you mean about the smell! I was outside earlier today and look over to see my dog with both front feet in, up to his neck in our dirty little pond! Doggy baths tonight, pond cleaning tomorrow for me!

Hosta Nerd said...

My dog used to drink out of the pond all the time. fresh water everywhere, and he choose to drink the stinky pond water.

Bought new pond pump this morning, and it's all place and working:)

Gayle said...

What are the dimensions of your pond? The scale shown in the pics is similar to a vision I have in my head for a special water surprise out my front door. I want to go small. How small is too small for some basic bubbling water for fun?