Pond

Bonus snow

We got some about an inch of unexpected snow yesterday. Some pictures from this morning.

Chickens in the veggie garden with snow:

Chickens in the veggie garden with snow

Beehives in the snow:

Beehives in the snow

Snow sliding off the greenhouse:

Snow sliding off the greenhouse

Brown gazebo with snow:

Brown gazebo with snow

The pond isn’t frozen:

Pond with snow

Sunny snow

We haven’t had any more snow for a couple of days, but it’s been below freezing most of the time, so what’s here isn’t significantly melting. The forecast calls for more snow this weekend, so the current stuff will solidify into a layer of ice, with fresh snow on top.

Here are a few more snowy pictures, from yesterday and today.

Gobs of snow on a dogwood tree:

Snow on dogwood tree

Snow on the beehives, with icicles hanging off the roof. The snow is melting above the brown one in the foreground, which is a good sign of warm bees inside. It isn’t melting as much on the other hive, which may mean they aren’t doing so well, or the roof might just be a better insulator:

Snow on beehives

Looking up at the ceiling of the berry cage. It’s holding up nicely so far, though I worry about its capacity to cope with lots more snow. But I’m not going to try cleaning it off; I want to see what it can handle, and will repair later if needed:

Snow on berry cage

A close-up:

Snow on berry cage

Some interesting graupel patterns on the frozen pond:

Pond

The pond and snow-covered trees beyond:

Pond & trees

Me shoveling the snow from the driveway, so Jenn could go out (the car is parked inside the shop, for now, though she’ll start parking it in the breezeway next to the shop, so I can work on the duck house in there):

Clearing driveway

Snow shovel:

Clearing driveway

Icebergs sliding off the hoop house:

Snow sliding off hoop house

Morning sun through the trees:

Sun

Sparkly snow:

Sparkly snow

Frozen garden ornament, with the brown gazebo in the background:

Garden ornament

Interesting morning light, with sparkly snow, and snow-covered trees beyond the field:

Sparkly snow

Frozen small pond:

Frozen small pond

Another snow day, and no power

We got a few more inches of snow overnight. This morning we lost power… still off a couple of hours later as I write this, though predicted to be back on soon. Hopefully. We have UPSes powering our internet, but no water, since we’re on a well. One day we want to get a whole-house generator, or Tesla Powerwall, but those are expensive. We do have a portable generator, but that doesn’t help with the water, and isn’t needed unless the power stays off for a long time.

Anyway, this morning Jenn and Rory joined me on the rounds, and I took a few more snowy pics.

This is the tree by the chicken run. The branches are usually high enough to walk under, not touching the ground:

The pond is frozen today; unsurprising with the temperature below freezing:

The brown gazebo and chicken coop:

Jenn taking a picture of the snow by the pond arbor:

Rory:

A view of the frozen pond from the pond deck:

Rory enjoyed some off-leash scampering in the field; she loves to run in the snow:

The apple orchard in the field, with the white gazebo in the background:

Rory sniffing deer tracks by the bird feeders:

First snow of 2019

Although much of the country has had lots of snow this winter, we haven’t had any… until now. Yesterday morning we had a brief dusting of snow, then overnight we got about three inches, with a forecast of more throughout the day.

Naturally, I took a bunch of photos while on my morning rounds.

Here’s the brown gazebo and trees covered in snow:

Snow on brown gazebo

The pond wasn’t frozen, yet anyway:

Snow on the banks of the pond

The flowerbeds, with the pond deck on the left, the brown gazebo in the distance, and the veggie garden on the right:

Flowerbeds under snow

The chicken coop:

Chicken coop with snow

As usual, the bird netting on the roof of the chicken run collapsed under the weight of the snow. I plan to replace that with welded wire, like the berry cage, but was hoping to defer it; now I guess I need to either repair the netting, or do the wire after all:

Chicken run

The welded wire on the berry cage held up just fine:

Berry cage with snow

The beehives:

Beehives with snow

The cat house, somewhat sheltered by the trees:

Cat house with snow

Turning on garden water

During the winter months, I turn off the water supply to the gardens, to prevent the pipes from freezing and bursting. Once the overnight temperatures are safely above freezing, I turn them on again, which I did yesterday.

This year, I didn’t have any burst pipes… but I did have one broken tap to repair, that was probably kicked by a landscaper or deer:

An easy repair:

I could then turn on the water. For the east side, I have a valve box that I installed last year, that lets me individually control the water to the chicken coops, veggie garden & shop, and pond/gazebo areas (plus an underground tap that I used over winter to refill the chicken water):

For the west side, there’s another valve box. The boxes tend to fill with dirt, which is fine as it protects them from freezing, but has to be dug out a bit:

I then added water timers to the various garden beds. Large areas typically have automatic timers like this:

Here’s the repaired tap again, with a manual timer attached. We use these manual timers for lower-priority irrigation areas:

I then started filling the fountain. Here’s the frog that lives in the center of the fountain:

The fountain nearly full. We plan to remove the flower girl statue part of the fountain at some point:

I also scooped leaves out of the small pond at the end of the stream. That took a while; it was pretty much chock full of them. Here, you can see the pump:

Then I turned on the pump, and the stream started circulating. So nice to have that running water again, and I’m sure the cats will enjoy it too:

Finally, I mowed all of the lawns and the field:

Mowing selfie:

A busy day of garden maintenance!

Pond fountain & salamander eggs?

Yesterday I turned on the fountain in our pond, to get some water circulation.

Before I could do that, I had to wade into the pond, as the fountain had fallen over, probably due to the ice. So I recently bought some cheap waders:

I was interested to find a couple of gelatinous blobs attached to the sides of the plastic pot that the pump sits in (to protect the intake from the pond silt). Googling images, I think these are salamander eggs. We know that our pond has salamanders, which we take as a good sign of a healthy pond ecosystem.

Here’s the righted pump; the water is murky from me stirring up the silt, but you can see one of the blobs on the left:

A view of the pond with the fountain running. It’s not a big fountain, just enough to get some water movement and aeration:

Several inches of snow

Yesterday was predicted to have 2 to 5 inches of snow, but nothing much eventuated during the day:

However, in the evening it picked up a bit:

And continued overnight, culminating in almost 8 inches this morning:

The camera that watches the front of the cat shelter was buried:

Another angle; the front of the cat shelter is in the middle of the photo:

The chickens were not impressed:

And once again the chicken run roof netting didn’t fare too well:

We took Rory out for a walk in the snow; she loved it. Here we’re checking on the beehives; her one chance to get so close to them:

The chicken coop:

Frozen pond:

View of the pond arbor, brown gazebo, and trees:

Snow on a tree near the white gazebo:

Our new apple trees might be regretting coming here:

Rory really loved scampering in the snow:

Bird feeders:

The cat shelter again: