Monday, July 1, 2013

Fish are in the pond!

I've been working very hard at getting my pond done.  We have had so much rain that I was unable to work on it for a while and dirt was eroding from around the new upper pond.  It was quite frustrating as I couldn't figure out where all this dirt was going, it was as if it dissolved!  We had great weather this weekend so I took it upon myself to work on protecting the dirt from erosion.  I had to dig a lot of dirt and put it around the upper pond, place rocks around it and they spread wood chips in between the cracks.  I also had to pump out the water from all 4 ponds (2 upper and 2 lower) and bail out every last bit of water because of all the mosquito larvae that was swimming around in there! :/  There was a leak in the new liner that had to be repaired and then more rocks had to be placed inside the pond while it filled with water.

To the left is my nephew Phil who really enjoys the pond and has been helping out a lot!!


Here's the work I've been doing on the new upper pond, it was exhausting!

 My family took pity on me and really helped me out today so that I could put my fish in the pond tonight.


In the above picture you have a full view of the old pond on the right with the new addition on the left and the fish floating in ziploc bags.  I float them in bags with their tank water for about 15 minutes until the temperature of their water becomes the same as the temperature of the pond.  We also place some hiding areas in both of the deepest parts of the ponds so they can escape racoons, cats, or birds of prey. 

Tomorrow I plan on replacing part of the liner for the waterfall on the original falls.  A leak developed as a result of an aggressive mole that caused some settling of the rocks.  I kept trying to repair it but it continued to leak so I decided to remove the old liner and redirect the falls.  I will show more pictures of my progress as time goes on.

I appear to be running out of large rocks!  I guess it's time to pay a visit to friends and family in northern MN in order to collect some more for my project!  I will show more pictures later!!  Thanks for reading!

Bison Behavior

While in South Dakota and North Dakota we noticed that Bison like to make wallows.  They rub themselves on the ground exposing the dry earth which helps them in several ways.  It helps them to shed their winter coat, it coats them with dirt that keeps bugs away and it is also soothing for them as the ground is cool.  Bison also rub against trees a great deal to help them remove their shedding winter coat.  We went up  and explored the wallows and some trees that looked very damaged and here is what we found!


 We found wallows of various sizes with lots of hoof prints and even some Bison fluff laying in them
Be also found a lot of different sized hoof prints as well.

There were plenty of trees that were damaged from the Bison rubbing on them, some were even dead!
And here's the evidence, Bison fuzz!!
We noticed that the Badlands of North Dakota are quite different than the Badlands of South Dakota!  The South Dakota Badlands are quite desolate looking, and the hills (if that's what you want to call them) look like they should be on an alien planet!




















We visited part of Theodore Roosevelt Park in North Dakota where they have Wild Horses!


They were so beautiful and majestic looking and some had adorable little colts with them!  There are two other areas of the park that are not connected that I would love to go visit some day.