Boy, I know I'm going to pay for it tomorrow, but I finished the pond refresh today. I had to break it up into two sessions because it was just a little too warm this afternoon and I'm not at all acclimated to it. I mean literally, 10 days ago it was snowing. I have the video of it on my phone, I just checked. Today it was in the 70's. I felt like a mole emerging from the darkness and cold. Oy.
Here's the before of the pond:
When taking the water out, I found tiny snails, and some kind of black water bug, and another bug, that I'm sure my brother knows, but I always forget the name. It makes a house out of sticks and sand particles. I put some of these creatures in a bucket to spend the day, while I worked. I wanted them to go back in the pond.
Here it is right before I took a break for the hottest part of the day:
I managed to lift the container out of the hole without too much trouble. It was sinking down too low for my taste. I added a layer of granite sand underneath it to raise it up quite a bit.
By the time I finished, the sun had gone down.
I took a very short trip up the road to a small ditch and gathered some kind of water plant, which may be water cress, I'll have to look it up later. I put it in an old ceramic dish with the mud it was growing in. I don't know if it will take, but I'm giving it a go. I put all the bugs and snails back in the water. The water should clear up by tomorrow. The mint plants will creep in and make a small ecosystem again. The hose I have there, drips water so there's always a little inflow and outflow, even though it just overflows around the pond, it's enough to keep it from turning swampy.
The hardest part was digging up that invasive grass. I pulled out big clumps of sod and filled the ditch that made with the granite sand. I used a little over half of the amount S. and I hauled down from the mountain. It always takes more than you think it will.
I added another fencing panel and left two or three of the Mexican Feather grass plants to grow. The deer don't eat them, amazingly enough. There are so few plants that they leave alone.
I'm really happy with how it turned out. But I am SO amazed at how quickly things get overgrown and out of hand. I am trying to think of something to plant in the cleared areas. The mint hasn't really started growing yet, but the roots are all around. The deer have taken to chewing on that too, though all the books say they don't. They haven't met THESE deer evidently. 😒🙄😕
