Wading in the pond to clean the fountain pump

Yesterday I received replacement chest waders (my old ones had a hole), and used them to clean and start the fountain pump in our pond.

I had previously had the waterfall running, but it tends to lose water, dropping the level of the pond. Normally I offset that with a hose topping up the pond, but the garden water is off for the winter, so I can’t do that.

So we also have a fountain pump in the pond. We typically use the fountain when the waterfall is off, to provide some aeration, and help prevent the pond from freezing in winter.

Here’s me wearing the waders by the edge of the pond (with the chicken coop in the background):

David wearing waders

Me in the pond, cleaning the pump:

Cleaning pump

The pump, lifted partially out of the pots it normally sits within (to prevent it from falling over):

The pump

The pump started, and repositioned a bit closer to the duck house:

Pump started

The pump operating; someday I may add a nozzle for a more decorative fountain, but for now it is just a bubbler for aeration:

The pump operating

Looking at the duck house from inside the pond. You can see that the water level has dropped so much that the end of the ramp is out of the water. I wish I had made it a bit longer, though the ducks don’t have too much difficulty in climbing onto it:

Duck house

Just for fun, I waded out to the deeper end of the pond. It’s hard to tell from this camera angle, but here I’m about 20 feet from the far edge:

David near the deep end

This shows the depth at that point, about 2.5 feet. The bottom is fairly steep; it gets deeper further back. It was very cold, too!

David near the deep end

Walking in the pond; the ducks were rather confused by my strange behavior:

David walking in the pond

The pump and ducks:

The pump and ducks

Stay tuned for more pictures of the ducks taken from the pond on Flock Friday!

Flock Friday for November 1

For this Flock Friday, I’m going to include the photos in chronological order, rather than grouping by ducks, new chickens, old chickens, and birds, like I usually do.

But as it happens, we start with the ducks anyway, exploring the northwest bank of the pond and the grass beyond:

Ducks

Next is a sequence of shots from inside the old chicken coop, as the pop door opens. No, it isn’t snowing inside, that’s just the bedding dust getting stirred up by their wings:

Chicken pop door opening

One of the new chickens has started laying! Here’s the first new egg, laid outside (as I expected; there are only a few places private enough to lay, and this is one of them):

First new chicken egg

So that was what I was waiting for to open up the nesting boxes, previously covered with plywood to prevent them sleeping in there:

Nesting boxes open for business

The new chickens investigating the nesting boxes:

Investigating nesting boxes

The second egg, laid in a box:

Second egg

A chicken coming out of a nesting box; now we know who is laying:

Chcken coming out of nesting box

Since we had a chicken escape through the hole in the run roof, I decided to repair it, with welded wire instead of netting as before. Eventually I want to replace all of the roof netting with welded wire, though no point in doing that just before snow is likely:

Run roof repair

Back to the ducks, on the edge of pond next to the overflow channel:

Ducks on edge of pond

The ducks with their heads together:

Ducks

As mentioned on my Dejus blog, it’s below freezing at night now, so I put out water heaters, including a heating pad under the hummingbird feeder to keep it from freezing. It hangs off paperclips to prevent the heating pad from touching the plastic base of the feeder, to avoid it melting:

Hummingbird feeder with heater

A chicken in a nesting box, working on laying an egg (as seen from the outside access door):

Chicken in nesting box

The older chickens are still molting; there are feathers everywhere in their run:

Chicken feathers

I’m looking forward to them finishing that process, since they’ve pretty much stopped laying eggs at present. But having a rest is good for them.

The temperature is cold enough to partially freeze the pond overnight, though it is thawing during the day (for now):

Ducks in partially frozen pond

That’s it for this week!

Flock Friday for October 25

It’s Flock Friday again!

Here are the ducks, in a very leafy pond (before I scooped out a bunch):

Ducks

The ducks going after mealworm treats:

Ducks with treats

A couple of closeups of the female buff duck, Gert:

Female buff duck

The male buff duck, Bert:

Male buff duck

The female cayuga duck, Gill, with water droplets on her head:

Female cayuga duck

A night swim:

Night swim

The ducks on the lawn, rooting for bugs:

Ducks on grass

I had fun taking zoomed photos of the ducks. Here’s Bert:

Male buff duck

Gert:

Female buff duck

Bert from above:

Male buff duck

Gert front-on:

Female buff duck

A couple of nice shots of Gill, showing the green iridescence:

Female cayuga duck

On to the chickens.

Unfortunately we lost another of the new chickens; Moana flew up to the top of the run fence, into the old run, and couldn’t figure out how to get back. She flew into the tree above the old run, and hasn’t been seen since. So she is officially missing, presumed dead. But maybe she’s off on some adventure somewhere. We haven’t had much luck with these new ones; we started with 8, and are now down to 4.

Here you can see Moana on the coop roof:

Escape chicken

Here she’s in the foreground of the old run:

Escape chicken

A pity; she was the most friendly of the new chickens.

Some shots of the remaining new chickens slurping up spaghetti:

Chickens with spaghetti

The old chickens with treats:

Chickens with treats

Finally, hovering room only on one of the hummingbird feeders:

Hummingbirds

Flock Friday for October 18

It’s time for a confession… I take way too many pictures of the ducks. They’re just so cute! Several times this week I told myself “no, put away that phone, you don’t need any more pictures”, and had a hard time narrowing down the ones to include this week. The new iPhone 11 Pro Max with the fancy machine learning optimizations takes some amazingly detailed photos, too.

Without further ado, the ducks:

Ducks

Duck

Ducks

Duck

Ducks

I haven’t included a picture from inside the duck house for a while; here are the ducks eating:

Ducks eating in the duck house

Ducks with lots of leaves in the pond:

Ducks with lots of leaves in the pond

Okay, enough ducks. Let’s look at the chickens enjoying some rice; one of their favorite treats:

Chickens

The older chickens enjoyed the rice, too:

Chickens

Finally, some hummingbirds:

Hummingbirds

Flock Friday for October 11

It’s time to check on the ducks and chickens.

Let’s start with the ducks, as usual:

Ducks

I really like that last picture of the ducks.

And the new chickens; here they are rushing to see me:

Chickens

Some older chickens:

Chickens

Inside the old coop, the flock block is slowly getting smaller:

Chickens

Flock Friday for October 4

We’re in Cancún now, but I prepared this Flock Friday update before I left, so you wouldn’t have to suffer a week without ducks and chickens. You’re welcome.

The ducks discovered a fun new activity: digging for bugs in the grass next to the pond:

Ducks digging for bugs in the grass

Digging amongst the fallen leaves is also enjoyable:

Ducks digging for bugs next to the stream

The next day, they were back in the grass:

Ducks digging for bugs in the grass

The heron returns:

The heron returns

Finally, a couple of pictures of the young chickens:

Chickens

That’s it for this week! I can’t view the cameras while away, so I might include some pictures from this week in next week’s post.

Flock Friday for September 27

It’s Flock Friday time.

Here are a couple of ducks heading up the ramp into their house:

Ducks heading into their house

Duck butts, looking through the pop door into the duck house:

Duck butts

Some pictures of the ducks in the pond, scooping up treats, and going between sunlight and shadow:

Ducks in pond

Another day, I went over to the west side of the pond, and the ducks followed me:

Ducks in pond

The chickens have been roosting above the window in the coop, which isn’t entirely approved, since jumping down from that height could injure them, or cause other chaos:

Chickens roosting above window

Like this: a chicken using another as a step on the way down:

Chickens roosting above window

So I trimmed the hardware cloth above the window to be less roost-like. One still managed to perch above the window, but the others took the hint:

Chickens roosting above window

A couple of pictures of the new chickens outdoors:

Chickens

A chicken pecking at zucchini:

Chicken pecking at zucchini

A steller’s jay bird flying off with a peanut from the tray:

Steller's jay with a peanut

Flock Friday for September 20

Hi there. It’s me again. Doing the Friday thing.

Ducks in their house:

Ducks in their house

Paladout (what we call the alien gray cat, if you missed that in the cat updates) visited the ducks one night; they were both startled to see each other, but he wandered off without any drama:

Cat by ducks

I doubt cats would go after ducks, being similar size. And the ducks were safe behind the fencing around the duck house ramp. I’ve seen them resting there overnight several times.

Ducks exploring the back of the pond:

Ducks at the back of the pond

I went back there, and they looked at me quizzically:

Ducks at the back of the pond

A view of almost the entire pond; you may be able to make out the ducks still at the back:

Ducks at the back of the pond

The heron visited again, and knocked the mobile camera out of alignment (it isn’t permanently mounted, but just resting on top of a boulder, with some bricks loosely anchoring it; one day I’ll buy a permanent one for there). Here it’s just jumped down from the rock:

Heron knocked camera

The culprit:

Heron

The heron taking off:

Heron taking off

The ducks exploring the grass between the duck house and waterfall. One more place for me to check for eggs when they start laying:

Ducks exploring grass

The ducks and fish scooping up treats:

Ducks and fish

Three ducks, three big koi:

Ducks and fish

(Yes, the fish are bigger than the ducks.)

Ducks circling:

Ducks

The new chickens pecking at some tomato treats:

Chickens with tomatoes

Chickens through weeds:

Chickens through weeds

Again with tomatoes:

Chickens with tomatoes

Hey there:

Chickens

The older chickens with tomatoes:

Chickens

We have a lot of tomatoes from the veggie garden right now; Jenn is canning 20 pounds or so of them, but the chickens get the split ones, and the ones the bugs got to first… if they’re really lucky, with tasty insect bonuses.

Hanging out with Merida, giving her pats:

Chickens

Fuzzy butt:

Chicken

Domino and Buffy:

Chickens

Lastly, a shot of some hummingbirds:

Hummingbirds

Did you see today’s YouTube video of hummingbirds and a wasp on that feeder?

Flock Friday for September 13

Welcome to a wet Flock Friday!

As hinted on my personal blog, we had a heron visit our pond this week. Twice.

Here’s the heron sliding off the edge of the pond (which slopes steeply) and taking a header in the pond:

Heron in pond

After it got out, it fluffed up most impressively:

Heron in pond

Heron next to the pond:

Heron next to pond

It flew over to below the pond deck, and one of the large koi swam up and startled it, causing it to jump back:

Heron startled by koi

Heron eat fish (and frogs and such), but I think the big koi are way too big for it to tackle. I didn’t see it catch anything; the smaller fish were wise enough to stay hidden.

Here it is flying above the pond:

Heron flying