The Zen of Pond Maintenance

On Saturday, I donned my waders and dredged some leaves out of the pond. This is a rite of spring since we established the pond back in ought four. We live in a forest of maples and poplars, so leaves abound. Moreover, they wash in with the branches that feed the pond. They don’t seem to do any harm, but they will turn the pond into a swamp within a few years unless we remove most of them regularly. The pond critters seem to like the leaves, and I suspect that frogs hibernate down in the muck under them. There are hundreds of big tadpoles and many egg sacks even though the pond only recently thawed. The tadpoles, frogs, salamanders, crawdads, and various aquatic bugs go in and out of the leaves. The water lilies are protected by the leaf layer over winter and are now sending up their pads.

I use some laundry baskets to scoop up the detritus on the bottom, and Mrs Vache Folle carts it away to a swampy spot we aim to fill in. This lets the water out and helps me ensure that I am not harming or capturing any critters. This is going to take a few sessions to get to where I call it good. Then, I will have to tackle the silt that came in last October. We had unusually heavy rains, and the branches deposited a goodly load of sand in the shallow end of the pond. I bought a Pond Vac 2000 that I plan to use on some of the silt.

Jasper took a few dips in the pond to cool off on Saturday. At one point, it was almost 80 degrees outside, and we played with his “Kong” football off and on all afternoon, so he was pretty hot.

The frogs have been singing already, and we have started sitting out on the deck to watch the birds and admire the view. We already have bumblebees, so the hummingbirds may not be far behind. We filled the hanging baskets with pansies and primroses, and put pansies and tulips in the pots on the deck. The daffodils and forsythia are in full bloom.

The pond is a lot of work, but I enjoy every moment of it, and I enjoy having water plants, snakes, turtles, birds and other wildlife around.