Pond Life
December 16, 2007The water is very cold, but there is still plenty going on.
This rather surreal shot, is of the fish swimming under the ice with the reflections of the surrounding trees; we haven’t messed about in Photoshop, but Joe and I thought the image had a bit of the Dr Seuss and ‘The Cat in the Hat’ about it if we turned it through 180 degrees.
The water in the pond is crystal clear at the moment, (I am sure I can see a Tesco’s trolley, lurking amongst the weed.) Thanks to the amount of rain we have had in the last few weeks, the spring that feeds it is in full flow; for the last few days it has been partiality frozen, the fish are swimming around with a slow ‘lava lamp’ morphing sort of movement. It would be very pretty to watch if it wasn’t so dammed cold. You can see here, the ripples frozen into the ice.
I don’t think I have posted about the pond before and I’ll write more about it another day, the place is a joy to me, at any time of the year, I consume many mugs of tea ‘up at the pond.’ I try and hide there but the boys know it is the place they are most likely to find me, just watching the world go by, on warmer day’s at any rate.
The icy conditions in the lane,continue to catch out the unwary driver, this is ice
and as I write Mr UHDD, is using the Landrover to tow a car out of a spot of bother. (I didn’t feel it would be very helpful to nip out with the camera, ‘man pride’ was at stake, I was tempted though.)
Fantastic photo!
I love the idea of the flying fish nesting in the trees (that’s a photo to keep to fool a future generation with; “All the species that have disappeared. You never see the arboreal goldfish anymore, but they used to be as common as anything.”)
Wow! on the icy lane - presumably it is far too far out of the council’s way to consider gritting… (Where I used to live in Warwickshire, the council only gritted one hill *after* the two school buses skidded down it in reasonably quick succession, the second hitting the first.)
We usually just ‘look after ourselves’ it takes a prolonged icy period for them to work their way round to us. But the broken drain from last weeks heavy rain has made it much worse than usual
I had rung the county council to ask for more grit/salt; they rang me back today to tell me it wasn’t a county council responsibility but a town council one, eventually we worked out they were talking about refilling the grit ‘bin’ at the other end of the road, whilst I was talking about a grit ‘heap’ a the top of the lane; apparently bins and heaps are very different things!
The county roads dept are pretty good, we rarely have to wait long, if there is a problem, and we do realise they have to deal with the bigger roads before single track lanes.
mugs of tea by the pond. Reminds me of my fishing days as a youngster when the only time you could guarantee a bite from the depths below was to get the flask out and start pouring. Two seconds later you would be cursing the one that got away as you dropped your cup in the cut whilst tryig to frantically strike at the bite. Our pond is much smaller but a garden with a pond is like having your own oasis in the desert. In winter it lies dormant but as he sun heats it up in spring it becomes alive once again.
the first goldfish i owned was won at ikeston fair( no longer possible as the hook a duck stalls are not allowed to have them as prizes ). Ive given all my fishing tackle away to 10 year old Tom 3 doors down and he ambles off to the cut in the six week holidays in search of angling fame. The stories he tells make me chuckle and remind me of a childhood without msn or mobile phones.
fed by a spring you say , stick some trout fry in it and wait.