Posts Tagged ‘pond waterfall’
Water Falls
The second time was the charm. Second day, that is. After failing to get a gasket to seat in so many tries that we lost count, Cyndie and I let our restart of the pond fountain pause overnight and came back with a new plan and a fresh start in the morning.
The trick that helped bring much quicker success was a lavish amount of Vaseline. Water is falling once again, and it’s a good thing, because it got down below freezing last night. I checked the pond first thing out the door to see if there were any icicles and found everything flowing just fine.
I was a little surprised to find our deck covered in white snowflakes this morning. Could it be because I did finally move some of the snow shovels from just inside a door to a storage hook further back? Or because I turned off the circuit breaker providing heat to the Ritchie waterer in the paddocks?
There was a thin layer of ice on the waterer this morning that I easily dispatched. The horses will never even notice that it was frozen.
The pond is on the verge of being swarmed with tadpoles, as soon as they start growing tails. It had Cyndie and me chuckling over the first year we found the pond filled with what looked like a plague-level quantity of the little swimmers, and she called the DNR with concerns that we might need to do something about it.
We always imagine what kind of smirk the person likely had as they explained that there was no worry that we were going to unleash a disaster on the neighboring ecological balance, because the tadpoles are near the bottom of the food chain of predator/prey relationships.
He told her that, beyond pretty much every possible predator feeding on tadpoles, they will even eat each other. Only about 0.1% survive to become mature frogs. There is no pressure from other fish in our little landscape pond, but I suspect our bird population takes full advantage of the food source.
At least we now have well-oxygenated falling water to help give the tadpoles a fighting chance of survival.
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Full Afternoon
When we reached the driveway yesterday after a couple of errands in the Cities, I stopped the car to check for mail and let Cyndie move over to the driver’s seat. Her new right knee was no trouble for her as she tested a quick stop and then piloted the vehicle up to the house and into the garage.
She just keeps checking off new firsts every day. After resting with the leg raised and wrapped with the cooling/compression machine while we had some lunch, she made her way out to assist me in getting our landscape pond cleaned up and the pump pushing water over the falls again.
That’s a milestone we were overdue to accomplish. It feels super to have that off our list and even better to again hear the soothing sounds of the splashing water.
Speaking of milestones, yesterday also marked the day Cyndie stopped using a cane when walking.
Activity moved from the pond to the paddocks and Cyndie walked all the way to the barn and back to the house after spending time with each horse and offering to brush them.
I went from the barn to the shop garage where I successfully fired up the lawn tractor for the first time this season. There will be no such thing as “no mow May” at our place. I mowed the two spots around the paddocks where the grass grows fastest.
Two of the more urgent projects on our spring to-do list have been checked off and both happened on the same afternoon. When spring growth finally kicks off, it doesn’t pause to wait for anyone who meant to get some things done before the leaves pop open.
I am thrilled to be able to move on to the next big thing. Friday, weather permitting, we are scheduled to receive a visit from the tree service. That’s another task I am hoping will happen before the leaves all fully open. As it is, that project is already about a week late in terms of the buds popping on branches.
Spring is springing out all over the place, and delayed though the warmth and sunshine may be, higher heat than my body is adjusted to is now showing up in force. I forgot what it was like to move hay around while working with sweaty bare arms.
I was very ready for a shower after the full afternoon of spring projects we successfully handled yesterday.
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Pond Inspection
While much of the country and the world are inspecting police abuses of people in custody, largely against people of color, we took a break from the protests to inspect the lining of our landscape pond. It is ridiculous how many of the battalions of riot police responding to the civil disobedience gatherings in protest of police brutality are responding with brutality. Talking about proving the point.
I’m hoping that Cyndie and I have proved a point that our pond losing water is not a result of a problem with the lining, much to my relief. I did not want to do the work of removing all the rocks and replacing the entire lining.
What I did learn was the exact level where water could flow over the top and out of the pond. Clearly seeing the structure beneath the large rocks decorating the boundaries of the pond helped me to improve the orientation of the waterfall feature. It is possible that the position of the overflowing pail was allowing some water to fall where it might run out, instead of back into the pool.
Some police forces may have a problem changing their heavy-handed tactics to a less brutal response but I have no trouble adjusting our waterfall further inside the edge of the pond.
In a few minutes, I will begin the test. We let the water stand all night to verify the level didn’t change. Today we will watch to see if the level holds when the waterfall is flowing. By the end of the day, we should have an answer.
It will take much longer to find out if the movement to accomplish equal respect for all races by the public servants entrusted to protect and to serve us will achieve its goal.
We’ve entered a moment of heightened inspection and greater recognition. May this time be different –in a good way– than all the times we’ve been here before.
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Relative Something 