Cleaning the Pond

Last May we rented an Excavator and had a friend use it to dredge out the pond.  We took out so much pond muck we had a dump truck work for 5 hours hauling what was taken out of the pond into one of the pasture areas.  At that point we had not decided to buy sheep or cattle so we didn't need the pasture.  The pond was beautiful for about 2 weeks then the moss started coming back.  In the middle of summer cat tails started popping up around all the shallow areas.  We had been looking into ways of controlling the algae and moss and ick problem.  We tried barley hay and saw no results.  We tried chemical and microbiological treatments still no or little results, dies seemed to slow the growth down but one of the times we put too much die in the pond and turned the pond a beautiful midnight blue we couldn't see the fish anymore and nether could the birds.  So after spending hundreds of dollars we decided to make the big purchase of an aeration system.  We WANTED a windmill aeration system, having a working windmill seems so romantic and ranch like.  But it is too expensive and we worried we might not get enough wind when the system is needed the most – hot still summer days.  We decided on an electric motor. 

This weekend we finally had all the supplies to put the aeration system in the pond.  We started Saturday with pulling out the moss, algae, and cat tails.  We started with trying to get the algae growth from the bottom of the pond using an old guardrail we have had around the property attaching chains to it and pulling it across the pond.  This plan was a huge success.  So much of a success we bent the guardrail in half and lost all the algae we had caught with it.  So we started pulling the algae by hand.  Thankfully Teen Boy had a board friend who came and help.  Thank goodness for this friend he is always happy to help.  The boys pulled 8 boatloads of algae out of the pond. 

  Darling Husband pulled cat tails out of all the edges of the pond we could reach.

  Since we were working outside all weekend we allowed the sheep to just wander and eat were they wanted to.  For most of the day they were content to eat in the areas we all ready had them penned in.  I guess they were comfortable there.  As the afternoon was ending they went into their pen and waited for us to close it up.