This past weekend, I wound up cleaning the pond. This is definitely one of those “do not try this at home” kind of things, even in the relatively mild temperatures (mild being a relative term literally–it was 85 degrees, but I know many of you would be overjoyed with that!) we were having.
But of course, there is no reasoning with the Spoiler when he gets something–or someone–in his mind. He found someone to help me and despite the fact that I said that it was not a good idea to do this–for the health of the pond and the fish–until cooler weather set in–he said that someone was coming to help me on Sunday so I had better be ready. Before you ask if he is any of the particular ethnicities that tend to be ridiculously stubborn, the answer is, we don’t know. He’s adopted.
So, I worked all day Sunday to “be ready” (which meant) lowering the water level, scraping the pond sides, and trying to catch those pesky fish. You can see 3 of them here. What you really see are four. There’s a black one as well. I had the pond drained down to just about mud before I could actually see him well enough to get him out.
What this photo also shows is the icky dried on algae on the sides. It also shows the nicely brown dissolved algae in the water. I am astounded that the fish were able to survive in there. My frog was loving it, however!
Then there was all this mess to clean up. This is actually an earlier photo, before I started dropping the water level. I cut back some of the bearberry (that lovely green creeper on the spillway) and I swept all the pine needles off the spillway. No sense in cleaning the pond just to have the next rain was all that crud right back into it (if there ever is a next rain, that is).
And of course, as this and the photo at the top shows, it’s now sparkling and pristine. But the water is about 25 degrees cooler than it started because it came straight from the hose and is still chilled. Luckily, because the fish sat out of the pond in the shade for about 8 hours, they had some time to cool down as well so it wasn’t as if I were dumping fish used to 80 degree water back into 55 degree water.
And the frog came back, clean water and all.I guess it forgives me for displacing it.
Next year, perhaps I will managed to avoid surgery so that I can get this done when it should be done–in early to mid June!
Gardendaze 