Posts Tagged ‘pond’
No Fish
One of the things that seems so sad about the failure of our 3rd transplanted maple tree in the labyrinth is how many hundreds of volunteer maples are sprouting in unwanted locations around our house and yard. A less stubborn (and probably smarter) person would likely make the obvious choice of moving one of these hearty little yearlings to the center of the garden, but not me.
I have been bound and determined to get a head start on a future giant center piece for our labyrinth by planting a tree taller than me with an already good-looking crown of leaves. When Cyndie suggested buying a tree with an established root-ball, I countered that I preferred one from our property, and each time my attempt fails, I am going to pick an even taller one next, to make up for lost progress.
If necessary, in a few years I will hire a truck with a giant conical tree spade to dig up a 10-year-old beauty, I’ll dismantle rock paths to make room for it to back into the center of the garden, and they can plop down a transplant that won’t dare fail.
I’m finding that it might be easier to replace rocks for the labyrinth path than get a tree to survive being transplanted to the middle.
A few days ago, a person who shall remain nameless, to protect their anonymity, dropped off a small fish for our landscape pond. Cyndie learned about it after dark, and went out with a flashlight to check. Yep, she confirmed, there was a fish swimming in our pond.
That’s the last time the fish was seen. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it didn’t adjust to the move, if we had found it floating days later. I never suspected it wouldn’t survive the first night and would disappear without a trace. Did a predator —probably raccoon— really find and dispatch it that swiftly?
Maybe it is just hiding really well, like the hidden growth of roots on the transplanted tree. Maybe the tree isn’t actually dead. It might just be taking a year off to develop roots, instead of sprouting leaves.
On Monday, I went to see a home game of the MLB Twins at Target Field with Rich, Jill, and Bob. It’s not a good sign that my only photo taken that night was of the giant display screen blazing the weather radar as the PA voice announced the game was being postponed.
I’m experiencing a trend. No tree, no fish, no baseball.
One of these tomorrows, I sure hope that sun comes out, and soon!
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Water Falling
I got the pump installed in our pond yesterday. It took me a while to get the pump to run because the garage outlets were all dead. I was stumped at first, because the circuit breaker in the basement was on and appeared normal. Eventually, I remembered there is a ground-fault interrupt outlet behind one of our shelves. Resetting that did the trick.
It was a wild morning, because Cyndie came back in the door shortly after leaving for work, and reported she had a flat tire. She switched and took the truck to work, because I had already scheduled an appointment to get the oil changed in my car.
Our local auto repair shop is great. When I stepped up to pay for the service to my car, he suggested I go get Cyndie’s car and come right back so they could fix the tire. I could pay for mine when I returned.
I put air in her tire so I could drive it and got it to the shop without any complications. They found the leak and plugged it without charging a penny.
In the afternoon, I did some more mowing, because the grass is really starting to take off and grow. The back yard almost looks to be in mid-summer form. It’s the trees that reveal we are still more spring than summer around here right now.
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Relative Something 