A little warier than last year. I am doing 3 things, first of all having a pond ‘turnover’ device, a little heated pump that will keep circulating a stream of water up to outgas CO2 buildup and then to return to the depths…and a regulation hole-creating pond heater that simply floats at the surface and makes sure an area stays open.
I’ve positioned both of these where wind cannot carry them out of sight under the bridge, so I will KNOW visually if the power is off to that line.
And I’ve put the black 6′ circle of fabric on a floating ring in place atop the fishes’ sleeping hole. So they can start to rest and calm down. If they don’t settle in a safe spot, they can keep swimming in confusion as the cold puts their conscious brain to sleep, and the end of that is freezing to death close to the surface.
Because the freeze-depth in this area barely reaches 6″ down, that means the dirt deeper than that stays warmer than 32 degrees F, and that means it keeps the water down there above 32 F, too. So the fish may be sleeping (it’s called torpor, not hibernation, a technicality of how the body survives) but they will not freeze. They apparently carry on some metabolic activity, and may even carry on ‘eating’ or rather drinking, just because there are algae spores in the water. I swear they come out of winter as fat or fatter than they went in, but won’t wake up and actually eat until around St. Paddy’s day. As they come out of sleep, you can feed them Cheerios or other grain-based food, but they won’t have any appetite until their stomachs ‘wake up’ and inform them they can eat now. This happens when the water (or their bodies, from the sun) reaches about 58 degrees. At that point, bio-activity starts to climb.
So probably they have had their last kibble until March. No Halloween treats for them.
Also, they do not want to become Halloween treats for eagles, raccoons, or other marauders!
Indeed, only tricks in our pondage, no treats. The netting can just freeze into the ice: it will be rotten rags by spring (it’s already fragile) but we shall not have early-season marauders.
Here around the Willamette Valley ’14, ’15, & ’16 were notably warm years, great Pinot Noir vintages, interspersed with mild winters.
I grow bulbs in containers. It has worked very well, until the winter of ’16-’17! I saw 10°F. Most of my Delft Blue Dutch Hyacinth froze out. Most that didn’t just put up stunted leaves an inch or so long and they died during the summer. Many of the other things were only semi-successful. Many were in 8″ pots I thought were “safe”. I usually have no problem with 6″ pots. I even had some bluebells in 3″ pots. Only the little blue Scilla siberica seemed to have no problems–no surprize that!
This summer I tried to determine if that was a “one off” or a change in trend. NOAA’s CPC wasn’t much help, but I decided to be conservative and bias pottings to the larger 8″ pots, and not put too much too close to the sides. (8″ pots have about twice the volume to freeze as 6″ pots.)
This summer when I repotted, 8″ pots, even some 10″ ones, got all the “main” plantings (54 of those, IIRC), just “leftovers” in the 6″ pots (45 of those, IIRC). And I am determined that if we get snow with the cold, as is likely, I’ll be out with a shovel burying pots with snow from the lawn.
p.s. I have quite the crop of Esopus Spitzenburg apples on my trees now. Thos Jefferson said it’s the best eating apple in America. He was right. Not a great tree though.
p.p.s. Time to try on my costume?
That didn’t work at this resolution. Guess I’ll have to change my costime again.
I actually saw your pumpkinhead before you swapped it out again, so fire when ready, Grizzly.
The way it was shrunk, from how it appeared on Gravatar, caused things to line up funny.
“Prepare to be assimilated.”
Oh, right, that’s the new immigration test, political, and off-topic.
Pumpkin body, penguin feet, wings and head?
Remember the old, old Disney cartoon of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow story with Ichabod Crane being chased by the headless horseman carrying a Jack-O-Lantern for a head? Like that, with Tux sticking a Jack-O-Lantern over his head.
The way it chose to keen and drop pixels made an “aliased” image that looked more like “The Scream”. So now I’m portraying a ‘Borg!
Tux is small enough I thought the Borg optical implant was a monocle! Strangely appropriate; today and tomorrow we are having Trick or Treat storytime at the library. Some staff are getting dressed up. I am wearing my Wrath of Khan ‘monster maroon’ uniform. If anyone asks, I’m recruiting for Starfleet.
4 years after planting, my Turkey Brown fig is beginning to bear. Sadly, only 2-3 at a time are ripening; enough to eat out of hand (which I don’t mind), but not enough to use for anything else. I also have to watch out for ants, who like the figs as well. One of the branches is scraping the ground. I will have to prune that back once all the figs on it have ripened and been plucked.
Our abused and underwatered apple tree did its best and gave us four apples this year, off the Fuji branch. I am beginning to know what to do with its pruning—an espaliered tree. And I hope I have some cold weather BEFORE the first snowfall to go out and do some things neglected during the kitchen remodel.
Don’t know if it would work, but you might just bury the pots in thick mulch—we need to cut and mulch the roses, which almost didn’t survive the surprise winter last year: that’s also on my list.
But that would provide advantageous cover for mice, and medium for fungi and other rotting diseases.
(Wish we had the square avatars back.)
Sometimes these templates update themselves and I have no idea how to undo the ‘improvement’ on a specific. Sorry about that!