Pond

Duck island buoyancy

On Sunday I did some more work on the duck island project, focusing on the buoyancy aspects. It’s a bit of a guess on how much I’ll need to make it float at an appropriate level, but I figure more is better; having it sink would be not ideal, and if it floats too high, I can always pile on more dirt, or remove some of the buoyancy.

There are two components to making it float: four 5-gallon buckets, and a ring of 4-inch pipes.

Here is a bucket, with a bead of silicone around the rim to help seal the lid:

Bucket

As you can see, the lid also has a rubber seal, and clamps on to the bucket.

A stack of four sealed buckets:

Buckets

Next I moved the island onto my cart, up the right way; this is the first time it’s been upright. Placing it on the cart makes it easier to work with, and it’ll be ready to transport to the pond:

On cart

Another component of the buoyancy is a ring of 4-inch ABS DWV pipes. The sizing worked out perfectly; the pipes came in 2-foot lengths, and I didn’t need to cut any of them to make them fit:

Pipes

I put some pool noodles inside the pipes; I don’t know if that’ll help at all, but can’t hurt.

I sealed the pipes with ABS adhesive:

Pipes

Then I attached the pipes to the frame with pipe hanger straps:

Pipes and hangers

My ideal water level would be about halfway up the frame, at around the midpoint of the pipes, so the middle platform (where the tools are in the above picture) would be just under water. We’ll see if that eventuates!

Here’s a closer look at a strap:

Hangers

Once again, Pepper the shop cat was supervising my work (or really just waiting for me to go away so she could get to her food):

Cat

Cat

Here’s the current state of the island:

Island

Next up, I will add the pond liner to contain the dirt, and a third platform level above the pipes.

January snow and aerial photos

Last night it snowed a little for the first time this season. Less than an inch; just enough to give a winter wonderland feeling around the homestead.

So this morning I flew my drone to capture the snowy landscape from the sky, plus some ground-level pictures on my morning rounds.

Here’s my DJI Mavic Mini drone hovering in front of me on our deck:

Drone

An overview of much of the snowy homestead:

Snowy homestead

Angling up a bit to capture the lightly dusted trees and mist:

Trees

Closer to the trees:

Trees

Our pond from above the back lawn:

Pond

Another angle of the pond, and a better look at the ducks:

Pond and ducks

Looking straight down:

Pond and ducks

From further back, you can see the pond, back lawn, and flowerbeds:

Pond, back lawn, flowerbeds

Back a bit more, adding the shop, hoop house, veggie garden, and chicken runs:

Pond, back lawn, etc

Looking down on the white gazebo and dormant flowerbeds; the cat house is also visible in the top-left corner:

Flowerbeds

The back lawn, brown gazebo, grove, and veggie garden:

Back lawn, grove, veggie garden

Down on the ground, here’s the greenhouse, with a sheet of snow sliding off the roof:

Greenhouse

Our beehives; they’re all huddled inside, keeping themselves warm. We’ll see in a few months whether or not they all survive the winter:

Beehives

By the pond:

By the pond

The duck house and pond — the water maintains its temperature well; it needs to be cold much longer to freeze:

Duck house and pond

The white gazebo and flowerbeds, with a glimpse of ducks on the back lawn in the background:

Flowerbeds

Finally, looking across the fountain garden towards the cat house:

Cat house and fountain garden

Flock Friday for January 22

Welcome to Flock Friday! I couldn’t help myself, I succumbed to the Bernie meme with a couple of the pictures this week.

But first, here are the chickens greeting me in the veggie garden:

Chickens greeting me in the veggie garden

Bernie watching the chickens:

Bernie watching the chickens

Chickens greeting me in their run:

Chickens greeting me in their run

Chickens waiting for treats:

Chickens waiting for treats

Me holding a container with some rice, which gets their undivided attention:

Chickens waiting for treats

They do love the rice:

Chickens with rice treats

Chickens with rice treats

Chickens with rice treats

Chickens with rice treats

Bernie in the pond; don’t sit there too long, the water is rather cold at present:

Bernie in the pond

Ducks:

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

A wide angle of the pond:

Wide angle of the pond

More of the ducks:

Ducks

Ducks

A foggy view from by the grove, with the new chicken coop on the left, the brown gazebo on the right, the white gazebo barely visible in the background, and if you look closely, some ducks on the edge of the lawn:

Foggy

A closer view:

Foggy ducks

Duck island progress

Yesterday I made some more progress on the duck island project. See my previous post for an introduction.

Having bought some 4 inch ABS DWV (Drain/Waste/Vent) pipes and 45° elbows from Home Depot, I dry-fitted them within the frame. I’ll need to trim a couple to make them fit, but they should help add some buoyancy to the island:

Pipes added

Here’s a closer view of the pipes, plus a bucket that I’ll optionally use if I need more buoyancy (as I probably will):

Bucket

If needed, I’ll add two or four such buckets spaced around the island, sealing their lids closed with silicone. I should be able to add them after installation, once I see how well it floats. (The lid doesn’t match the bucket as Home Depot didn’t have the black ones I wanted, and only had orange lids, but they fit the green buckets; I’ll face the lids towards the center of the island, so they won’t be visible.)

Pepper was supervising me:

Cat

Next I used scraps of wood and clamps to measure the boards for the platforms:

Planning platforms

There are two levels of platforms; one should (hopefully) be right about at the water level, the second lower than that, as ducks find it easier to swim up then put their feet down to step higher. The lower ones weren’t in my original design, but I think will be a good addition.

I lifted the island to lean it on the shop door, so I could attach the platform boards; this is our first look at the top of the island, too:

Leaning on the shop door

Here are the water-level platforms, made from 1×2 boards, attached with finish nails:

Adding platforms

A closer look:

Adding platforms

Back down on the floor (and upside-down again), adding the lower platforms:

Adding platforms

I know they aren’t super tidy; I didn’t bother cutting the boards at angles, or trimming with a nice clean line, since the ends won’t be visible when underwater.

Here’s a closer look at the two platform levels, and the pipe:

Adding platforms

That’s it for now. Next time, I will trim the pipes and stick them together (I forgot to pick up the proper adhesive for ABS pipes from Home Depot, so ordered some from Amazon).

I will attach the pipes with some metal hanger straps, and add the pond liner that will contain the island dirt. I’ll probably also add a third platform level above the pipes to help hold them in place, hide the edge of the liner, and make another step for the ducks to jump to before reaching the dirt.

Then it’ll be time for installation! We’ll see how far I get next time. Stay tuned!

Duck island thoughts, design, starting

Our ducks spend a lot of time on the banks of our pond, or swimming around the pond. Being in the pond is safer for them at night, being less accessible to predators.

I have added several upturned pots in the pond as mini islands for them to rest on, as additional options, but there aren’t enough for everyone.

So I recently had the idea of using an old dinghy (that we inherited with the property) as an island.

Here’s the old boat:

Old boat

I dragged it to the pond:

Boat on pond

Then waded in the pond, flipped it over, and pushed out most of the air (the boat has a big hole in the bow), to make a larger island, wedged on top of one of the pots:

Boat island

However, that isn’t ideal either, as (a) the ducks seem to be freaked out by it, not wanting to go near it, (b) it’s kinda ugly, and (c) it doesn’t seem great for roosting or nesting.

So I decided to build a wooden island, with a thin layer of dirt and grasses, contained by some spare pond liner. And to make it a bit more island-like, I thought I’d make it an octagonal shape.

The first step was to sketch various sizes to determine a good size; big enough to be useful, but not too big, and considering materials (cutting 8 foot boards into various lengths efficiently). I sketched it in the excellent Linea Sketch iPad app:

Drawing

I decided that an octagon 6 feet across would be ideal, with some platforms around water level to make it easier to get on and off. Here is the design I came up with:

Drawing

Here is a GIF time-lapse of my drawing (a fun new feature of Linea Sketch):

Drawing

I surveyed the wood I had on hand, and started to construct it:

Wood and table saw

The edges are 6×1 boards, screwed into blocks; here I’m laying out the pieces:

Laying out edges

Below the edges are 8’ 2×4 boards to help hold the shape and support it, with bits sticking out beyond the edges for the water-level platforms (this is upside-down):

Base

That’s where I’m at currently. On Sunday I’ll add the platforms.

My original concept was to add legs, so this would sit on the pond floor to support the weight of the wood and dirt. But I’m now planning to make it a floating island. Floating would have the advantages of rising and falling with the pond water level (which can vary about 10 inches throughout the year), and perhaps be movable for maintenance. But it also has some complexity of getting it to float at the right level, and anchoring it in position.

So I need to figure out how to add sufficient buoyancy. There are complex formulas for that, but that’s beyond me, so I’ll probably just add a bunch of foam pool noodles, and/or closed pipes, and hope for the best. If anyone has any advice on this, I’d welcome it!

Flock Friday for January 8

How about some pictures of chickens and ducks to distract from the chaos of the world? Oh, and some bonus cats.

Only three chicken pictures this week. Here are a couple roosting on top of the metal food storage bin in the old coop:

Chickens

Enjoying some treats in their run:

Chickens

Chickens

The ducks over by the edge of the flowerbeds, with the white gazebo in the background:

Ducks

Heading over to the back lawn, past the pond deck:

Ducks

Night ducks:

Night ducks

On the back lawn, with the brown gazebo and new chicken coop in the background:

Ducks

As mentioned on my personal blog, I noticed that Sassa, the gimpy duck, is actually a boy:

Sassa

So we need to come up with a male Swedish name starting with “S”. Got a bunch of suggestions via Micro.blog already, but if you have any ideas, let me know.

Along with a similar discovery last week, that means that of the six ducklings from the second batch last year, which were supposed to be all female, two were male, and four female. Which brings our totals to five males and seven females… not an ideal ratio at all. I hope that won’t be a problem in Spring when they start mating. Male ducks can be, shall we say, rather enthusiastic in their endeavors.

A couple more pictures of the ducks on the back lawn:

Ducks

Ducks

Yesterday when I went to the pond, I noticed the ducks on the back corner, and two cats off to the right:

Ducks and cats

Here’s a closer look at the two cats; a black one (hard to see) and the gray Paladout:

Two cats

Closer:

Two cats

The ducks sleeping on the bank:

Ducks

I went around that side for a closer look; here several of the ducks are tilting their heads to look at me (but Betty is sleeping by the seedling):

Ducks

I went behind the pond, and the black cat scampered through the fence (I’m pretty sure both living on that neighboring property):

Cat

Paladout is more used to me, and just watched from the top of the bank:

Cat

I wasn’t too worried that the cats would attack the ducks; ducks are too big for cats to want to tackle, unless desperate.

Flock Friday for January 1

Happy New Year! 🍾🥳🎊🎉

Today, a surprise revelation about the ducks… but first, some chicken pictures:

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

The ducks in the back corner of the pond:

Ducks

Ducks

Our pond partially froze for the first time this season on Tuesday. Here’s a time-lapse GIF of about an hour of the ducks swimming around in the non-frozen portion:

Ducks

A still shot:

Ducks

Another time-lapse GIF:

Ducks

When I went out there on my morning rounds, the ice had already somewhat melted, but there was some left:

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

So what’s the surprise? Well, we noticed that we had misgendered one of our new ducks. In the second batch of ducklings in 2020, we expected to have all females, including a Khaki Campbell, who we named Clara. When ducklings are young, it can be hard to tell their sex, and apparently the hatchery made a mistake. Ducklings initially develop feathers like females when young, but as they get older, males start to show distinctive plumage. So apparently Clara is actually male; we now have two male Khaki Campbells, and one female. So Clara’s true name is now Cam.

Looking back at my photo archive, I can now see the first signs of a change as far back as October, but I didn’t notice until Jenn pointed out the change on one of the rare times she accompanied me on my evening rounds. I’m so observant!

Here are the ducks on the back lawn. The front rightmost two are the two Khaki Campbell males, Clyde and Cam:

Ducks

Ducks

In the pond, from the pond deck:

Ducks

Collision while going after mealworms:

Ducks

A closer view; Clyde and Cam, the two Khaki Campbell males, are the lighter ones with dark heads on the left; Cora, the female, is in the center, with a Rouen behind her:

Ducks

Peeking through the duck house:

Duck

The bank by the duck house:

Ducks

Another couple of pics from the pond deck:

Ducks

Ducks

Flock Friday for December 25

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! It’s also a Friday, which means it’s time to peek at the flock.

Literally — peeking through the nesting box at a duck in their house:

Duck

Some ducks eating from the feeder tube:

Ducks

Ducks

Rainy night ducks:

Rainy night ducks

Ducks on the lawn:

Ducks on the lawn

Several are sleeping, with their heads tucked against their bodies, while others are on watch:

Ducks on the lawn

Bert flapping his wings:

Ducks on the lawn

The chickens waiting to greet me in the corner of the veggie garden:

Chickens

Looking through the fence separating the new and old runs (there’s a chicken-sized doorway connecting them):

Chickens

Coming through that doorway to receive treats:

Chickens

Some closeups:

Chickens

Chicken

Chickens

Pictures of hummingbirds, some of which were previously posted on my personal blog, some new ones:

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds

Scattering when the dog approaches:

Hummingbirds

On a rainy day, the chickens tend to hang out in the coops; here some are on the new roosts:

Chickens

A few hours later, the hummingbird feeder level is looking much lower; I had to refill it an hour or so after this:

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds

Another day, the sugar water was partially frozen, due to subfreezing overnight temperatures; I haven’t put the heating pad on it yet, since it is warming up during the day, but probably will soon:

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds

Stay tuned for a video from the pond, to be posted shortly.