Bruce's Journal

That's RIGHT Bruce... don't TELL her... let her come here and READ it!

I think it best she not read my journal

RollingAcres said:

Like an all-you-can-eat tadpoles buffet.

Bruce please don't tell DD1 I said that.

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That heron was coming to the buffet daily for quite some time. I bet it didn't tell its friends about all the free food. It has been around again of late, don't know if it is getting into the shallow water or just attempting to "tadpole" from the edges.

We had a heron stopped in our side yard last week but I couldn't get a pic of it.

Believe me, a little mud will not deter the heron. I'm sure that for as many as have been moved, it has gotten that many or more for it's lunch. They will actually stand on the edge of the concrete cattle water troughs, and grab the goldfish that we put in them . When we had drought type conditions several years ago and the spring had trickled to nothing, I caught the d******d heron actually standing in the trough cuz it was down to about 6 inches from 2 1/2 feet deep. They will wade in some pretty deep water, and mud is not a big deal although they prefer their food to be "clean".

farmerjan said:

They will actually stand on the edge of the concrete cattle water troughs, and grab the goldfish that we put in them .

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Goldfish in water troughs, that's cool.

Keeps the mosquitos at bay.


Hopefully the frogs and tadpoles will lay low when the heron comes around. Whether I had dug it or not, PRESUMABLY it will have water in it again. Without fish and frogs I think we would have a hellashish mosquito problem. We have plenty of seasonal insect eating birds but no way they could keep up with a pond full of mosquito larvae and the nasties that hatch from them. And they don't show up so early that the mosquito horde would not have already started.

One word......DUCKS!!!.....

Sorry Fred... IMHO, ducks aren't the answer (by themselves)... They aren't going to get 100% of the larva, and they make a HUGE mess! So you trade off one benefit for a rather nasty detraction... Just MHO... Some mosquito fish will make a huge dent as well and provide food for other animals. Go to the local bait shop and buy some live minnows and release them in the pond. Maybe go fishing and catch a few small crappie/sunfish and release them. A couple catfish will help keep the bottom clean(er).

Well now....I know they aren't the "end all" answer and there are some factors that can be controlled, in order to lessen the mess. If there is any barley grown up that way....Bruce could always get a bale of barley hay and make "barley balls" out of it and just toss them in the water and it will do more to control the skeeters than everything else combined....for the 2-3 months that he has skeeters there. Some bat houses would help too....

CntryBoy777 said:

One word......DUCKS!!!.....
View attachment 52351

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Only if you promise to come deal with the winter water issue!!

We do have a bat house, don't know that any bats ever live there. I suspect not because we would likely see them coming out at dusk. I would LOVE for them to populate it. There was one bat that found its way into the wood stove about a month ago. Came down the chimney but could not fly straight up to get out. The chimney is a metal one external to the house so I took the clean out cap off the bottom and the bat disappeared.

Don't know if anyone sells barley straw, don't find any with a google search. Apparently it is good for algae control.

I don't know what kind of fish "Adam and Eve" are. Probably something gotten as LS suggests, from a bait shop. I don't know if they are native or not.