Cardinal and Robin Drink From the Waterfall

They are hard to see in this picture but if you look close, you'll see what looks like a Robin in the left of the photo drinking out of the waterfall reservoir. And waiting her turn is what looks like a female Cardinal sitting on the rocks in the center of the picture. So far this year we haven't seen the Great Blue Heron or the Owl visiting the pond.

Today I a great Deer scene of three Deer in the woods at the end of our driveway. Too bad I didn't have a camera ready. There were three adult Deer; one standing with a Deer on either side lying down. I don't think I have ever seen Deer lying down in the wild. They looked very comfortable and weren't spooked by my appearance. They just watched me pull out of the driveway.

Snowy Day at the Pond

Yesterday the temperature approached 50 degrees and today we are "enjoying" a projected 1 to 3 inches of snow. So far we have about an inch of snow on the grassy areas. The Goldfish are laying low near the bottom of the ponds with the water temperature at 42 degrees.

As to the possibly sick Goldfish I talked about last week, he is still alive and the spot may be looking slightly better. I did test the water and the test kit said it's ph was lower than ideal. I changed out about twenty five percent of the water and added some baking soda. The baking soda solution was the result of a Google search. It did raise the ph into the acceptable level. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that the Goldfish will survive.

Might be a Sick Goldfish

It looks like I have a sick or wounded Goldfish. See the nasty white spot at the base of the tail on this big Goldfish in who lives in the small pond. I noticed him hanging out in the corner and on closer inspection, I saw the spot. When I tried to catch him to get a close up view, he swam away without hesitation. And he stayed out of camera range so the second picture is one of the other pond residents who doesn't seem to have any spots. I did a little research and the spot may be a water quality problem. Tomorrow I'll buy a test kit if I can find one and see what the water is like. If it is just a water quality problem, it should be pretty easy to fix.

2nd Homepond Blog Book Published

The second book, "The Pond Diary 2007" in the Pond Diary series has been published. Once again this is a birthday gift for my mom who doesn't go online. She loved the first book and said it was a big hit with her friends. The first "The Pond Diary" covered August 2005 through December 2006. This book covers January 2007 through December 2007. The star of this years book is the Moultrie MFH-DGS-100V2 Game Spy 100 Digital Camera. With this camera I was able to get pictures of the Blue Heron, Hawk, Owl, and Black Cat that were visiting the pond in search of a good meal.

The direct link for the new book is:
http://www.lulu.com/content/1743529

The direct link for the first book is:
http://www.lulu.com/content/599985

It is Really Cold

January has started out really cold. This morning we woke up to only 17 degrees and as you might expect with these temperatures, some ice has formed on the pond. In the first picture is ice that formed at the bottom of the filter.
In the second picture is some of the ice that is surrounding the Styrofoam providing protection for the Goldfish from the various predators in the neighborhood. I haven't seen any of the predators in a while but I suspect they are still around.