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):

Me in the pond, cleaning the pump:

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

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

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

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:

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:

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!

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

The pump and ducks:

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