{"id":33,"date":"2009-07-12T01:29:45","date_gmt":"2009-07-12T01:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/?p=33"},"modified":"2017-02-05T03:30:06","modified_gmt":"2017-02-05T03:30:06","slug":"the-new-pond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/2009\/07\/12\/the-new-pond\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Pond"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"New<\/a>\"The<\/a>It\u2019s been very hot here this summer, with very little rain, and we\u2019ve had to take steps to shelter animals and any plants and trees that we value.\u00a0 With temperatures rising to around 105 degrees nearly every day for the last month, and less that one inch of rain in the same time period (on top of about a 30-inch deficit over the last 24 months), we could easily have a large die-off.\u00a0 The original pond is a good example of the potential danger.\u00a0 With it in direct sunlight all day, it seemed like overly heated water might endanger the fish.\u00a0 After all, about 2 inches of water was being lost to evaporation (and probably wildlife water needs) every day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"new<\/a>Quite a different problem emerged however.\u00a0 With all that heat and sun, and an adequate supply of water (one of the few examples of that at the ranch), the pond instead became hyper-productive.\u00a0 Various water plants, and the ever-present pond weed were choking the pond, with open water for the fish to move around always shrinking.\u00a0 I began to think that that was the greater danger.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>I\u2019ve always wanted to have a second pond to develop a \u201cback stock\u201d of fish and plants.\u00a0 Several years earlier, my neighbors had donated an old stock tank that seemed perfect for the project.\u00a0 With the visit of my nephew (extra labor and interest in ponds), the time seemed right to create a shaded pond, move the fish, divide the exuberant plant life and expand my landscaping.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"PT<\/a>As you can see, PT worked hard with us, and about a day\u2019s effort resulted in the pond you see in these pictures.\u00a0 It\u2019s near an area I\u2019m developing for an oriental meditation garden (which needs a pond and fish anyway) and is shaded most of the day.\u00a0 A couple of improvements on this version: an easily serviced bio-filter and an automatic fill valve.\u00a0 The bio-filter is a commercial model, is mounted so the cover is at about waist level (no more stooping!), and is serviced by simply lifting trays out and rinsing them off.\u00a0 The automatic fill valve was constructed using parts stolen from an automatic dog watering bowl and is intended to keep the pond at a constant level.\u00a0 There are five fish at present (two from the old pond and three new additions).\u00a0 One measure of the old pond\u2019s productivity: after splitting and re-potting several of the plants, and removing a contractor\u2019s wheelbarrow of extra plant material, there were still enough plants to make both ponds look full.\u00a0 Amazing!<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been very hot here this summer, with very little rain, and we\u2019ve had to take steps to shelter animals and any plants and trees that we value.\u00a0 With temperatures rising to around 105 degrees nearly every day for the …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[18,41,25,136,43,21,42],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gardening","category-pond","tag-drought","tag-fish","tag-hill-country","tag-homesteading","tag-tank","tag-texas","tag-water-plants"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimkerkhoff.com\/test-roycreekranch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}