Pond Maintenance
Each week more and more leaves blow into the pond, become waterlogged, and sink slowly down. Imagine how much sludge there was, then, at the bottom of the Moosey Pond after fifteen years! Some Pond maintenance was well overdue.
From the Pond...
A man with a scoopy digger was duly found, and we discussed how much to the garden he needed clearing to get his truck in. No problems - just some easily shifted grasses and shrubs were blocking the way. The large bronze flax would have to move, but he'd scoop it out for me. Phew! That would have taken me all day.
...To The Truck
The pond was drained in readiness for the big clean-out. The man scooped out ten truckloads of super-slimy sludge and drove it to a dumping spot behind the distant hay barn. So now there's an odd mountain of deep, dark muck - and unfortunately there are so many eucalyptus leaves in the mud that it's not very useful to use in or on the garden. Gum tree leaves take years to decompose, and they do so with some reasonably antisocial consequences.
The Pond Bottom
The man with the scoopy digger did a brilliant job! There was little mess, he filled in much of his excavations, the big bronze flax survived to be replanted, and Non-Gardening Partner levelled the paddock and sowed some new grass seed. All done in a day!