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Garden journal entry |
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Max, Ben, and Lily enjoy the water |
August 01, 2009. I spent a good amount of time over the past couple of weeks in our swimming pond – not to leisurely splash around, but in a quest to rid it of the carpet of algae laying on its floor. We've had the pond for nearly three years now, and it always goes through cycles where algae grow, slithering in the gentle currents, out from the rocks to which they attach themselves. This year, we must have had a surplus of nutrients, and algae just laid themselves down, to decompose on the pond bottom (with sub-optimal fragrance results). After trying several approaches, some involving sump pumps and elaborate filtration schemes, I found that the most effective means of de-algification involved a man (me) and a strainer (one of the ones I use for cleaning seed) – and lots of surface dives to scoop up the green stuff. Luckily, my hard work paid off: the kids are once again enjoying the pond. Meanwhile, my job has shifted to harvesting the pebbles that slide to the bottom level, and redistributing them to higher levels to hide the black rubber lining. Low maintenance? I think not. But it's a pleasant job, in the heat of summer. |
Last modified:
September 09, 2009
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