Backyard Pond

Discussion of backyard pond, frogs, goldfish and plants.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Copperhead Snake

Today I was cleaning up weeds around the cisterns and came upon a snake hiding behind one of the cisterns. I grabbed my trusty "snake stick" and the snake stayed put long enough for me to capture him. My wife got the camera and took some pictures of this critter who I guess was 3 to 4 feet long. I thought this was another water snake and took him to the farthest point from the house and tossed him over the fence. After more research, my wife and I decided this was a copperhead. I would have been a lot more nervous if I knew that when I captured this guy. Hope he keeps moving away from the house.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Droopy Bamboo

A number of our huge bamboo plants became very droopy from the high winds and rain of the hurricane . Three weeks later they have not recovered. These giant bamboo plants are 50 feet tall and some of them are bending down to the ground. Since the chance they will stand back up is slim, I'm going to have to cut them down before we get snow or ice that would break them off completely.

Friday, September 09, 2011

Pineapple All Points Bulletin

We have issued an all points bulletin for our missing pineapple. Yesterday we saw the pineapple plant was missing the pineapple we have be growing for a year. So sad. I figure it must have been a raccoon because of the size of the pineapple. I think it was too big for a squirrel who has stolen our tomatoes. We hunted but saw no evidence of where the pineapple went. The second picture is an interesting weed that seeded itself in one of the pots on the front porch. The white flowers are quite pretty but I assume they are seeds for this weed.

Sunday, September 04, 2011

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene was one weeks ago and we were lucky. We lost five large trees but were lucky they all fell away from the house. The root ball in this first picture is 10 feet tall, the tree was 100 feet tall. In the second picture is another 100 foot tall tree that had a very strong root structure. Instead this tree broke off 30 feet up winding up next to the tall stump which I assume will die in the near future. Our only losses were two goldfish who died from a lack of oxygen in the pond when the pumps stopped due to no power. Luckily power was only out for 24 hours or it could have been much worse.

Friday, September 02, 2011

Raccoon and Possum

Last post we saw the gentle bunny scrounging for thistle seeds under the bird-feeder. The other night we captured pictures of two other critters just 10 minutes apart. I didn't think the raccoon and possum would also be interested in the thistle seeds spilled by the birds eating at the feeder. But here they are getting what they can from the seeds. I knew we had possums around but I think this is the first time I have captured a picture of a possum.