Chores

Mate and I were able to crawl out of bed in time to get in an early morning stroll before she had to start work.

Oh look, my oil streak runs all the way down to the end of the driveway (and out into the street).

I have never regretted a walk taken first thing in the morning. I see and hear more animals at that time. There’s always something cool to experience as well. Here is a tiny feather I found –

Figure it’s from a quail.

Ironhorse had chores for me. First up – dredge the pond.

The pond is fed by runoff from the spring. It fills up with silt and sand pretty quickly. We catch this water and pump it back up the hill into tanks. From there it provides irrigation water.

The first step is to divert the flow of water where it falls into a settling tank (more on that later). When the flow of water stops it’s time to evacuate the rest with a shop vac.

Now it’s ready for me to wade in with the hand tools. Buddha will supervise.

I noticed a wriggling form splashing around in the mud. Looks like the last, runtiest tadpole of the season. I scooped it up and dropped it in a jar of pond water. Hey! It’s a froglet!

Nicely developed legs and “arms” on the little guy.

I found this odd little gardening tool. Dunno what it’s called, but it came in quite handy for scraping mud off the sides of the pond and into the center where I can pitch it out.

Another very essential tool.

The spoils. Ironhorse is gonna use it to add a hump into the path where the roots of the maple tree are heaving the pavers.

Here we see the setting tank. The idea is to increase time between dredgings by capturing as much sand as possible here where it’s easier to dump.

I didn’t get a pic but the tank was almost full of sand.

I found that as long as I continuously push the sand towards the bung, the head of water will push the sand out the bottom.

Looks good to me.

Okay, here’s a “rock” that Ironhorse made from salvaged concrete (actually, ALL the concrete pavement on the property comes from salvage – there used to be a concrete plant nearby, and he made an arrangement with the dispatcher so that anytime a mixer was headed back with leftover material they could dump it at our place. We usually got a solid 15 minute heads-up).

Anyway, he didn’t like where it was and wanted to move it over into that fresh depression I made.

I guess this is what he had in mind.

I told Mate about the froglet. She is a notorious animal collector and has been yearning for a frog. She and Daughter set up a little habitat in the planter box.