Remember my pond rebuilding project (click here if you missed that story)? For a while, it was looking not-so-good. I know it is because of the drought and the heat and I kept telling myself that I should be glad that it had any water in it at all. That all sounds good, but it is hard to keep in mind when you're faced with a big, ugly, smelly hole filled with rather nasty looking water every day. Especially when the terrible heat drives one's dog to swim in it anyway...
However, since the above photo was taken on August 7th, the drought has come to an end here and we have had several big storms that brought considerable rain with them. With the rain, the water level in the pond has come up nearly five feet...
The water is still full of fine, clay silt and it will be for quite some time, I think it will be Spring at least before the silt settles out. However, if you can look past it, you can see that the water itself is clear now...
The silt certainly does not bother the masses of frogs who moved back into the pond almost as soon as there was enough water to wet their backs. They have laid masses of eggs, which are already starting to hatch. In addition, I've seen at least one of the painted turtles sunning herself on the rocks and last week, Riding Buddy was here, and we both saw a bird visit the pond that neither of us had ever seen before. It was some kind of Sand Piper we think, but nothing either of us have ever encountered. I tried to get some photos, but it blended into the clay shore so well that it was nearly invisible.
As for the little salamanders that I am so fond of...a few days after the pond was dug out, I walked around the outside of it. I saw hundreds of the salamanders and I was upset at first, but then I realized that they weren't dying at all. They were making their slow way out into the woods and resuming the bright orange coloring of their terrestrial life stage....
A Red Eft - the terrestrial life stage of a North American Newt
It is simply amazing to me how such tiny creatures can survive this kind of upheaval and disruption...
And yet they do. The pond is not even refilled yet and already, it has more diversity and signs of life than it has ever had. In the Spring, I will add fish and I look forward to seeing what other sorts of creatures move in to investigate.
I think that before any of you got to read my last post, it was already obsolete. The excavator showed up early yesterday morning with two very large pieces of machinery and before I had to leave for work that evening, the pond was finished. I spent the day alternating between watching them work and working on my woodshed. The difference between these two jobs could not have been more painfully obvious. The speed and ferocity with which these machines can destroy and rebuild a big chunck of earth is amazing. On the other hand, I have been working on this building for almost a year now. It's skeletal outlines show up in the background of many of my photos.
The building project has suffered greatly from lack of time, lack of money, lack of tolerable weather and lack of energy and attention on my part. In spite of the many lacks, I have been slowly and painfully getting the roof on my building over the last week. It is a huge step toward completion. It's a job that would have taken a two person roofing crew about an hour. I am thrilled though, that with my schedule and the brutal heat we have been dealing with, that I got the job done in a week. With the kind of helpers I have to contend with, I am a bit amazed that I have gotten anything done at all...
Watching these huge machines gave me distinctly mixed feelings. On the one hand, I had serious machine envy...what I could get done if I had one of these suckers around all the time....
On the other hand, just watching them made me feel terribly guilty about all of the little salamanders and frogs who must have perished. Between us, we did save several turtles so it's not all bad. The pond will be healthier and better habitat in the end, but still...
Also, I can't even begin to imagine what these monsters cost, not just to own, but to operate as well. My little building may have taken a ridiculous amount of time to build, but it and everything else I have built, is paid for. This pond repair is the only part of my house building project that I have borrowed money to pay for. It took years of saving, a well timed real estate sale and more crazy financial juggling then I can describe, but the place is paid for. I had to borrow several thousand dollars to pay for this pond, which makes my teeth hurt, but it's something I've wanted since I was a child. I think it will be worth it.
Once the machines got past all the muck, they hit nothing but this hard blue clay mixed with stone. It is why the soil up here is so poor, but it is ideal for ponds...
Within just a few hours, water was accumulating in the bottom. We found a least four separate springs feeding the site...
Once it fills back up, it will be 8-10 feet deep, tapering to a shallow end under the trees. The trees will provide shade and cover for fish. I may roll some big rocks in to provide more fish habitat and I'll probably build a little dock which would also please future inhabitants. I need to do more research though, I want to get it right.
Thanks to All County Construction for helping make this dream come true.
It is pretty to look at and is a haven for frogs, salamanders and turtles. However, over the many years since it was built, it has filled in and become very shallow and mucky. It has become a great place for mosquitoes to breed. I have wanted to have it dredged and re-dug since I first saw it. I want it to remain a haven for amphibians, but I also have dreams of swimming in my little pond, an activity that holds no appeal in it's current state. Last year, after nearly giving up, I finally found an excavator willing to take on the project and after much discussion, worry and anxiety, I decided to have the pond fixed. And then it started raining. It kept raining until we had the worst flooding this area has ever seen. Fortunately, my home is on very high ground so I wasn't much affected by the floods, but pond work couldn't be done in such muck and flood damage repair took precedence. As it should.
Right now, we are in the middle of a drought. Farmers are rightfully worried about their crops and I am very glad we have the barn filled with hay. We are going to need it. However, it is the perfect time for pond repairs and I just got word from the excavator that he intends to start working on it this week. I wasn't sure this was going to happen at all. I had to pester the guy a bit and he originally told me he couldn't get to it till September which I was very unhappy with. Since the job got postponed last year I was supposed to be at the top of the list this year and waiting for September to do excavating work has had disastrous results for me in the past. The excavating for my house kept getting postponed until it was done (with much reassurance, but against my better judgement) in late Fall and I am still dealing with problems caused by that. July and August are the time to do excavating in NY.
I am excited and anxious about this project, it is something I have wanted for a long time. It is a big, expensive job that I don't have much control over and my experiences with contractors have not been favorable to date. This guy did repair work last year on my original excavating mess and he did a good job. He comes highly recommended. He is not cheap. He did fit the job in in July as I wanted.
