Our Swimming Pond......

(Photo from an online swimming pond source)

Nope that is not me in that picture above.

I could very well be floating around on my back in that beautiful clear water though.

I did just that today in our fishpond/swimming pond!

It has been around 100 degrees every day this week while Danny has been on vacation.

He has been working of and on each day on the hill above our pond building a fence, digging post holes and running wire, and has threatened to just jump in.....he can't swim and the life jackets have been at the other house......it's a shear wonder that he hasn't sailed in any way as hot as it has been. I wouldn't blame him if he did.

I too have thought about it all week.

When we built the pond we just knew that it's location would leave us the coldest water around these parts, and the fact that it is spring fed from a spring that is right beside it.

We never even thought we would be able to swim in that pond!

However the first year that it filled up it was so hot and that water was so inviting that we decided to try it.

It was just perfect!

The water was so warm.

We swam and swam and swam.

The girls and their families came over several times to swim with us.

I made big plans on how we would fix the area up to look like a swim beach at the lake.

I dreamed of getting up early on summer mornings and swimming laps across the pond before breakfast. Swimming and sunbathing all afternoon.

Who was I kidding here?

The end of that summer we spotted a couple turtles and a snake.

The next Spring another snake.

Danny had some excavating to do around the pond and cut the timber off of the hillside before we could finish the work that we wanted to do....the dream of how the place would look had to be put on hold til he got the time to do all that work.

We then saw all the creepy crawlys and I put a big halt on the plans!!

It turned off dry and the spring almost dried up to where we only had a small trickle of water coming in. The eco system of the pond was so screwed up that we had so much string algea that we would have gotten strangled had we tried to swim in that dirty water.

So we gave up for several years now...often threatening that we should just jump in anyway.

Fast foward a couple more years..........The water has come back full force in the spring and we have a big swoosh of water feeding the pond. The eco system has finally come into it's own and the water is clear as a crystal.

So in we went today and OMG we had a blast!!

I found a life jacket for him. I can swim but i used Emma's little yellow ducky float to play around on.....hence NO pictures!

We had so much fun and we discussed at length how we would go ahead as planned and finally finish up our lake beach type area. We might even get a sliding board for the grandkids to slide from the dock!!!

He will haul a load of sand in, ( I am thinking white sand like Destin Beach Fla) he has already leveled the area off beside the dock for the beach.

I want some lounge chairs to sit on the grass above the sandy area.

He is going to put a cover over the dock with a shelter that extends back from the water where we can have a picnic table, a grill and a small fridge. An outdoor lakeside kitchen!!

We already have power down there.

We will have to have a johnny house like Terri's!

OMG Just speaking of this makes me sooooo happy!

We did not see any snakes or other creepy crawly's today so I will just have to suck it up and grow me a ......well grow up and not be such a fraidy cat anymore!

Danny said that when they see the 2 great white whales jump in the water they all run for their life anyway!!

We plan to get on this newest/rescheduled project soon so we can enjoy the rest of the summer in the water!

If you can't reach me in the mornings I just may be swimming those laps ;-)))

Won't you come join me for a swim?

I promise the snakes will run when they see me in that child size rubber ducky float!!!!

I bought me a green alligator float tonight!! I will let you use it!!

You guys just have to come and see Danny do a "Geronimo" off the dock like he does off the back of the boat!! OMG It will crack you up! Sorta a bellyflop/cannonball!!

Where were my girls when I needed them?

As you all know we have a big/biggish fishpond and we LOVE to fish in it and better than that we love to feed our fish and watch them come up to eat.

This year the mosquitos have been so bad that we,well I, could hardly stand to go down there at night. Of course I am fortunate enough not to be as sweet as my girls and have them eat me up but they still drive me crazy buzzing around my ears.

So bad in fact that I resorted a while back to buying one of these:

Hahaha! Me with a bat house??? Pretty funny huh?
I was very desperate to get rid of the mosquitos!!
So I bought this one from Lowes and it said on the instructions where and how to hang it and we did just that and it also said that in 30 days from the time you hang it you will have bats!
I told my father about this cause he has a fishpond and surely has mosquitos and I thought maybe he would find it interesting that we have a bat house.
Well he told me then that bats were getting to be endangered in Virginia...probably everywhere now......and that if I did not already have some bats that there would not be any to come to my bat house. At least he did not think they would.
I said "Oh well the house looks pretty up on the side of that tree anyway."


We have been watching and watching for bats and saw none.
Last night was the first time that we were down there fishing for a long while and we left before dark. Tonight however we sat there while I was catching fish right and left....he caught zero.........and all of a sudden I almost fell over in the pond when some sort of flying creature came zipping by my head. I yelled bat!! Well "BAT" was more like it and he said it wasn't. Then it kept coming back and flying around and around on the top of the water and he suddenly realized that we did have bats!! Probably 6 of them and maybe more!


I had to leave before it was completely dark cause of the huge water snake.....


Build it and they will come! At least that's what I have heard!!
I can't wait to tell daddy that I have bats now.
Of course we aren't 100% sure that they are living in the bat house but we have never had bats there before so we are thinking the folks were right. I just wish I would have paid more attention to the date that we hung the house and watched closer each night for them to come out at dark. I am waiting to see them fall out of their bat house like these on this youtube video!
Go over there and watch it if you are not squeemish and a fraidy cat like I am!!

Eeeuueeewwwhhhhh!!!!! Yuuuuccckkkkkkk!

It was a great joy to watch them for a while working that water surface for mosquitos tho! They say that in one night a single bat can consume 3000 mosquitos!
Who sits around and counts them?
I am happy if they get 300 each night!

I sure wish my girls were here tonight cause they love bats and snakes and I am sure they would have loved it!!!



I have a feeling that there will be some colorful dreams in my head tonight!!
OMG!!!! Bats and snakes........

Spring has sprung!!!!

This is how we celebrated the first day of Spring down on the farm.

We had to throw a fishing party!

Here's Danny with his 14" Large Mouth Bass!

Poor thing is still sick...........me too. Yuck, when will this stuff ever end?

I went to the grocery store today and I thought I was going to have to sit down half way thru the store. He said he is just incredibly drained too. Of course he cut wood this morning and hauled a huge dump truck load in before he went fishing with us.
Now if you have ever talked to any of my family they would surely have already told you some of the funny funny stories about the happenings around our fish pond. If it involves a critter that can habitat around or in water we have a story to tell about it.......well no alligators YET!!
Shown above is Morgan's minnow trap that she kept set last year beside the dock and she would go down every day to see if she had anything in it. Of course we would always tell her that she would pull it up with a snake in it one day............oh yeah they like our pond too! Funniest story ever involved a snake and a poll vaulter!!!!! hahahaha
So today Colton ran over as soon as he got to the pond and grabbed the trap up out of the water and said "it's something in there."
Leslie walked up behind him and said "Let me see is it a snake?" "Oh yes it is a snake!!!!!" well not so calmly I might add here......
Of course this was going to be a Nikon moment and I sure as heck wasn't going to be caught on the dock this time!!...........Remember the poll vaulting story...yep that was me caught on the other end of the dock from the snake and I was just about to go swimming!!!




Oh yuck yuck double yucky yuck!!!!!!
The trap was full of lizards!!! I mean full of lizards!!!!
Of course we were all kinda excited because that meant some big bass would be on our hooks shortly...since we had our hook baiter with us today!! I can do worms but no lizards!!
Wrong!!! The pond is full
of lizards and the fish didn't want them today.
Danny caught his bass on a rubber worm.
The only fish caught today.
~
While I have been so sick for sooooooooooo long I have watched a lot of Food Network. I have really fell in love with the Neely's.
This morning they were making Chinese and boy it "Flung a craving on me"......ever heard that saying? It's Jerry Clower at his best!!
So I had to go to the grocery store and get the fixings for some down home southern style chinese food!!! Oh boy I am glad I did too!!


Well not exactly a Chinese dish here, but we had Tiramisu for dessert!
That was really good and soothing on my sore scratchy throat. Shoulda made that weeks ago!


The best part of the meal.........Pulled Pork BBQ and Cole Slaw Egg Rolls.....well smack your mama!! Dipped in a homemade Spicy Peach Dipping Sauce....could you imagine?? Well I thought I could imagine how good they would be but I was oh so wrong.............they were so much better than I could have ever dreamed they could be!!!!!! Those kids were on to something here!!!


I made Cashew Chicken and the Neely's version of Fried Rice with ham.....
Super duper yummy way to celebrate the first day of Spring!!!!!!!!
Sunshine, good food and good family times!!!
Happy Spring to all!!

This is what farm girls do.....

They go fishing when they want to be outside enjoying the new sunshine but they are not feeling up to pruning blueberry bushes, hanging laundry on the line, cleaning off the porches, cleaning up the flower beds, cleaning around the pond, painting the outdoor furniture, tearing down the pergola,cleaning out the root cellar, cleaning out the garage, making curtains for garage, cleaning out the chicken coop, cleaning out 2 goat barns, painting a goat barn, building a new goat barn (oops that's on his list) cleaning up all the broken trees and limbs in the yard from the bad winter storms, cleaning out the boat, deciding whether or not I can spray paint my stainless steel gazing ball, painting the concrete yard art, trimming goat hoofs, worming goats, cleaning the gravels out of the flower beds that the state highway dept pushed in there trying to clear my roads this winter, picking out new roses for the new pergola, (building the new pergola is at the very top of his list), wash the cars and the list goes on and on and on and on .................see why I went fishing this morning instead of working on this list. There is no end in sight!! Don't be jealous of me I didn't get a single bite!! I did see a lot of great big fish though!! I'll be back to get you soon!!

Fish

I have had this fish bowl or what ever you want to call it over on my other blog and I would go over there periodically to feed the fish. So I decided to add it to this blog today! Just place your curser over the fish and click a couple times to drop them some food and watch them gobble it up!! Someone designed this with me in mind!! I love feeding our fish in both ponds here on the farm. We have a stocked pond with a couple hundred catfish, a few bream and bass. Supposedly a hundred crappie but we have yet to see one of them. We get so excited when our 3 white catfish finally decide by the end of summer that they will start coming up where we can see them!

I have about 25 goldfish in my garden pond that I can see from my living room window.......when it's not covered with ice!!!! I wish I could keep it heated so I could see my fishies year round!!

I can just sit for hours and watch them eat! Both online and in person. I really need a shot of summer here!!!! In case you haven't already been able to tell that!!

A Kodak moment....

I remembered my camera this time. On Friday evening while we were feeding our catfish we finally spotted 2 of our big white albino cats that came up to get food for the first time this year. Last evening we spotted them again. Click to enlarge picture and get a look at the difference in the size of the white ones verses the channel cats. WOW!!!
All 3 of them!!! Bout fell off the dock too! At least I did have the camera.

They are so dag um happy on the bottom all year that you could never even get a glimpse of them. Occasionally if the moon and stars are properly in alignment they would sneak up and eat with the others. Robin hooked one last year while all us girls and kids were fishing and it was a sight!!! She was yelling for help cause she thought she had Moby Dick on her line. I was laid back with my feet propped up in one of those folding/in a bag loungers ( LOL!!! ) on the other side of the pond. It took me for ever to get out of the thing with out folding my self up in it. Her rod was about to break in two. She was dancing and screaming like a girl......thought she had a mud turtle on her hook cause it was so heavy. Just as it was finally pulled to the top of the water I made it to her and her line snapped. We both were able to see what it was and yelled out "A white catfish!!" I was happy that it got away but she wasn't happy at all. It appeared to be about 14" long at that time but they are at least 20" long now.

Look at that face. Scary huh?
Danny and Robin keep threatening to catch one of these and eat them. Over my dead body! These are my pets. I don't think either one of them would do that to me, do you?

An aerial/over the mountainside shot of where all this action takes place.
Multi colored fish, bear, snakes, turtles, raccoons, skinny dippers, ................no skinny dippers since the first year cause of so many other creatures!!!!!

My first trip to "THE POND"

I usually pull the boat, haul the feed and hay, camping supplies and pull the camper around!
Well Dad had a great idea one afternoon that he needed to put me in the FISHPOND...what?...to make sure I would crank when I got him on the lake this summer......OK!

That is it was OK until he found out that I had NO GAS and I WAS STUCK...... HELP!...GET ME OUT OF HERE!!! I HEARD THE STORIES ABOUT THE MUD TURTLES....I KNOW THEY BITE!.....AND OMG THERE ARE CATFISH IN HERE....GET ME OUT! ...HELP MA!!!!!!

DAD DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE IS DOING!!

HOLD ON SON I'LL SAVE YOU!! HAVE NO FEAR WONDERBOY IS HERE!!
WONDERBOY WHO HAS LOT'S OF BIG BOY TOYS THAT IS!! GOOD THING THE SKYLIFT WAS HERE SON OR YOU MAY HAVE BEEN A GONER!!All gased up and fired right up like a Chevy!! Now for the pond aeriation....I'll scare those big ugly white catfish!!! They don't know who they are messing with!! OK Wonderboy anytime now.. here comes a bluegill and look at all those Crappie...OH CRAP!! ...oh Wonderboy do you hear me??... anyone?...