Subtle, Baby, Subtle

The shame of foot flatulence!


Early spring was rainy here and the "pond" has responded ... or should I say ... "reponded".
The two-lifers have taken advantage of that and the pond has massive swarms of tadpoles cruising through it.

(I guess my symbolic Easter post was a bit TOO symbolic yesterday, since no one seems to have commented to that effect)

That's the problem with subtlety, it's often so damn subtle, ya miss it.

My plan to introduce azolla , the floating water fern to the pond in a bid to shut down some of the photosynthesis below is proceeding as planned.
A nasty alga known as Chara (aka Muskweed) tends to fill the clear waters of my pond as summer progresses. Being a cleverly simple alga, it only takes a single dormant cell that toughs it out through the dry periods for a reinfestation to occur.

The azolla and I are working together to make at least parts of the pond less inviting to Chara.

"I cast thee into darkness Chara!!"

It's fern vs. alga in the battle of the pond!

Here's some wonderful news.
If you've been hanging with me at PF for any time, you know that we came into some rare, free, massive timber bamboo last year.
And you might remember that we busted our cute little butts digging it up from the donor's place and then replanting it here at PFHQ.

Of course, you also remember this winter and the roundhouse kick it gave to Florida with freeze after freeze after freeze.

My bamboo acted like they were hurt by this change in Florida's usually sunny attitude and their leaves browned ... things looked iffy.

I am happy to announce that my grass on steroids has decided to burst forth with new canes so we can all take a collective sigh of relief.





Princess Laya (best hen ever!) always disappears when she starts laying. When she disappeared several weeks ago, I was afraid that her free range luck had run out and a predator had taken her.

Then, about 2 weeks ago, Emma (best middle daughter ever!) was home for college spring break and she spotted Laya foraging in the yard.

That's when I knew she had not been eaten (duh) and was instead, working on a project.

We looked in all the usual places, but could not find her nest.

On the day of the chicks discovery, I noted that she was hanging around with them in one particular area ... an area with a canoe stored upside down.

There was just enough of a gap between canoe gunwale and soil to allow a girlishly petite chick like Laya to slip under.


When I lifted the canoe, there they were.

Judging from the egg shells left behind, she had a pretty good success rate ... which is what you would expect from the best hen ever.