Spring has arrived, at least on the calendar it shows spring is here. After what seems like another long cold and lots of snow winter it good to know it’s almost over. (video at bottom)
After seeing and plowing snow almost every day, to waiting for the temperature to rise above zero it seems like it will be great to get to actual warmer temperatures and start seeing something else rather than the white stuff. But, is it a good thing that the snow is leaving? Now we are going to be stuck with mud, dead vegetation which offers no stopping or slowing of erosion and of course potholes on the roads and driveways alike.
Geese, the Flying Manure Spreader
Don’t worry it will get better, the ground will dry up and we’ll see green again, grass, trees and in the ponds as well. Spring also marks the migration of the flying manure spreader, breeding, laying eggs and making more little flying manure spreaders.
Another surprise we had this spring, actually this week, was a rare sight on our property of the Albino deer. This one would be the yearling and the mom is out there a couple miles away.
Albino Deer
What about the ponds? They are still iced over and seem to be a foot or so thick yet except for the deck and pier where we had the diffusers running all winter to keep the ice off. But while the ponds are still froze over we are thinking of what we need to do this year to have an enjoyable pond season when.
A quick check of things we need to do is, get the pond dye in a soon as the ice goes away and the water slows from flowing out the down pipe. Sure we may get rain storms and may wash out some of the dye, but we’ll simply add a little more pond dye from our Super Concentrated Pond Dye quart.
Then depending on the weather and mostly temperature warming up we’ll get the aeration system going with the start up procedure to purge out any bad gasses that built up over winter so not to starve the fish of oxygen and give them time to get acclimated to the water moving about in the pond.
Then once the water temperature reaches 55-60 degrees we’ll start adding the Beneficial Pond Bacteria to work on any muck that has accumulated and break down any new debris that has gotten into the pond.
In the mean time we still have work to do around the pond removing dead plants from last year, like cattails and Pickerel that we may have missed in the fall cut back. Also do safety check to see if we have any depressions around or on the dam, check out the overflow pipe coming out of the dam to be sure the water is flowing on the inside of the pipe, NOT the outside. I you do see water on the outside of the pipe, keep an eye on it daily. If it slow and stops once the ground dries up that’s fine, but if it keep running, we may have problem that will need to be addressed very soon.
Other than that we’ll let you know what else we do as the seasons warms up, new products when we release, techniques or problems to solve along the way.
The video below is a rare scene on our property, glad I could find the camera quickly.
