My Pond

The Pond, September 12, 2011
The Pond, September 12, 2011
2018
June 9: I bought a water lily, Perry's Almost Black, from Lacoster Nurseries, $35.
2015
June 16: Some of the edges had slumped. I removed the liner earlier. Today I cleaned out the loose dirt and reinforced the edges with bricks and post timbers, then replaced the liner and filled it with water.
HOME

Other Years

2014
April 27: The pond was entirely melted yesterday and did not freeze on top overnight.
May 4: The mat plant was floating in the water, and green.
7: I found a clump of frog's eggs in a ditch south of La Barriere Park and brought it home.
8: I kept the eggs in a bowl of water. Yesterday the centre of each egg was black and spherical. This morning the black centres are shaped like two joined spheres.
9: They have a head end now and a crude tail. A few have left their eggs and are lying on the bottom.
10: Most have left their eggs and are clinging to the sides. I put about 20 tadpoles into my fish tank and the eggs mass and most of the tadpoles into the pond, and kept about 30 in the bowl.
11: Those in the bowl have developed a finer more transparent tail. The swim faster and are still clinging to the sides.
June 3: The first 20 I put into the fish tank have disappeared. I guess the fish ate them. I put 10 in later and they are doing well. The ones left in the bowl are also doing well. I give then boiled spinach leaves and a bit of flour and fish food daily. They each eat about half a spinach leaf per day, and one of them has developed tiny back legs. There are many small tadpoles in the pond. They come to the top when it’s sunny. The floating mat plant is doing well, and the reeds have grown above the water now.
17: I took those from inside the house to the ditch where I found the eggs and released them. Almost all have back legs and a few have front legs too and were crawling out of the water onto a rock I put in their bowl. I saw 80 tadpoles in the pond at once when I sprinkled some floating fish food on the water.
July 19: I saw 75 small frogs sitting together on the board I put from the pond edge into the water.
 
2013
May 12: I emptied the pond and got rid of most of the detritus on the bottom, then put the cattail plant in. Cleaning it that way seemed kind of pointless since there is far more soil in the cattail pot than there was in the pond. Many snails were alive and the plant that forms a mat on the bottom was fairly green.
October 24: I finished emptying the pond and caught 7 or 8 fish. Many snails were alive and the plant that forms a mat on the bottom was fairly green. I expected more fish. I put some in in the spring but kept some back. I suspect the spring ones had died when I put the others in. I have no explanation now of why I thought that or of how it might have happened. I will put the pond fish into my tank, which has about 14 of their fry in it. I returned the cattail and the plant mat to the pond and added water.
 
2012
September 19:I raised the level of soil around the pond in the spring, thereby making it deeper. The fish that come to the top are large, but I put 40 in and see only about 10. The water has been green with algae almost summer.
 
The Pond, June 1, 2011
The Pond, June 1, 2011
The Pond, June 19, 2011
The Pond, June 19, 2011
2011
May 28: Today I bought a pond liner and a small fountain pump, second hand, $30.00. I want to develop a pond and water raceway in the raised flower bed, and these purchasess will allow me to lay out a pond this year, to improve upon next year. I also got a number of flat pieces of Tyndall stone that will be useful around the pond edges.
31: I began digging. I plan to make it 45 cm deep. If it’s more than 60 cm deep, I will have to fence the yard and meet the building requirements for a sort of swimming pool.
June 1: I finished digging the pond, installed an underlay then the pond liner, and filled the pond with water.
5: I finished arranging the stones around the pond and set out 3 begonias, the nasturtium, the cannas, the ensete, and the elephant ear near the pond.
6: I planted more flowers in the raised bed.
7: I bought 6 White Cloud Mountain minnows and 4 water lettuce plants and put them into the pond.
10: I added one water hyacinth. The minnows are doing fine. At first they hid but now they swim about and pick at bits that are floating on the surface.
July 1: I dug a reed from a ditch, put it in a pot and packed peat moss around the soil, put the pot in a basket of gravel, and sunk it all into the centre of my pond. There is also some grass, reed grass I expect, with the reed plant. There were snail shells so I expect snails and who knows what else.
October 13: I drained the pond and brought the fish in for the winter. I have about 65 fish!