# My pond is no more



## Pusser (May 9, 2005)

Due to blanket weed and chic weed throttling other plants and tadpoles too, I have given up the fight and it is now filled in. Also this will presumably get the snakes to move on to wetter pastures but I did find a baby snake and took it down to the stream with newts and some tadpoles who must be very late developers.

But I am a bit sad because I have probably caused the deaths of lhundreds of little creatures in this 30 square yard monument to man's incompetance and igorance that I built with my own two hands. 8) (And a shovel 8O )

The chap next door took a day of from work to help me do the work and refused payment of any kind which bearing in mind he did 99% of the work and I cooked the brunch has left me feeling a tad guilty. So i am taking them out for a slap up as soon as he has time in a busy schedule of harvesting and planting as he drives these .25 million quid machines. He has offered me a day out on one which I will do as these are all computer driven and the steering lighter than on a car. I think they have 750HP engines.

I digress. Now when I look out all I have is a 30 square yard patch of earth so when it dries I will break it up and evetually turf it then buy a small water feature and that will have to do.

Many interesting visitors had come to my pond. A beautiful fox that up until then has avoided the savage attacks of the gentry and their dogs, Eva Heron who used my pond as a Sushi Bar, King Fisher the 1st used to pop in, loads of birds bathed on the sand beach it had and frogs held annual orgies in it. Had some beautiful lillies which now lay under ground as I was told I could get done for fly tipping if I released them on to the river. And of course our resident grass snake family who had a soft spot for Cuisses de Grenouille. (..and the rest...  )

I suppose now I shall have a distinct lack of creatures visiting me now which is going to cause me some sadness particularly next year but even on balance, it had to be done. 8O


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## rowley (May 14, 2005)

Oh Puss, too late now but you could have made it smaller and easier to control. I hope that you don't regret not seeing your menagerie any more.


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## Steamdrivenandy (Jun 18, 2007)

I presume you're referring to combine harvesters Pusser. 

We've had a constant stream of them past our place for the last week or so. They vary from brand new ones that are half the size of a small town, with a driver up there somewhere if you can get binoculars out to search for him through varying sizes and colours to some real old rust buckets.

I walked the dogs over a field of stubble yesterday and disturbed a herd of geese who were feeding on the leftovers. From what I could see an awful lot hadn't been collected but had gone through and out the other end. Not of geese but the combine.

The other thing I've noticed is that combines seem to spend a helluva lot of time with maintenance engineers crawling over them. You'd think they'd make them more robust instead of just bigger and bigger and bigger.

Just in case you've got withdrawal symptoms here's our pond. The water is under the cobbles and there's a small pump and fountain under there as well.


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## 90128 (May 1, 2005)

Oh Pusser I know how you feel - and all you needed was watercress growing in a water fall to clear the blanket weed!! 

We had four heron visit last Thursday morning to inspect the plastic one in the garden. Saw them all off from the bedroom window. Our pond is 21ft x 14ft and I have it netted with a fine strong nets from Wilkinsons.


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## Pusser (May 9, 2005)

I tried all the witch craft stuff with barley, filters, the missus although I did not try watercress.  I thought watercress demanded running water.

Yep it is those big combines but what I said was all I really know. I hope to be a combine expert soon. I wonder if he will let me drive it. 8O And it is like your water feature that I shall aim for SDA although I probably won't have a silver alien. 

Making it smaller was not really an option. It would have had to be drained, and the liner repaired, and too much work for someone as fat as I to handle.

I was thinking of having a pool built and then I thought go to France and get one thrown in with the house and orchard, driveway and vineyard.


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## trevorf (May 16, 2005)

I know how you feel Pusser, I filled in my beautiful pond made by by own hard work 5 years ago.

But there again I had a good reason for doing so - I needed somewhere to park the motorhome we had just bought 8O 8O 8O 

Trevor


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## Steamdrivenandy (Jun 18, 2007)

Talking of ponds, way back at the end of the last millennium our village elders asked for suggestions for a landscape project to commemmorate (? enough 'm's) the moment.

Our Low Green at the centre of the village is a 50yd x 25yd rectangle that used to be a mire before they culverted a beck that ran from the old tannery into the 'pond' back in the 1920's. It's now firm grass, except when the funfair comes in July when there's usually a thunderstorm and it turns into a quagmire.

Anyway I suggested turning one small corner back into a village duck pond with seats for calm reflection and railings to stop the nippers falling in when they had their nature lessons etc.

Well you'd think I'd suggested poisoning several small children. We had one lady saying that it would entice 'all the beasts' down to the area to drink. Leaving aside that these days this is mainly arable prairie, any beast about are well fenced and have a water supply laid on. 

Another said there'd be hundreds of kids drowned. A quick call to the police found that they could not think of one case in living memory of a child drowning in a village pond.

Anyway the upshot was we got a sort of truncated plinth with a metal map of the village on it instead. Hardly anybody looks at it and it can't really be used for nature lessons.

SDA


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## 97620 (Feb 8, 2006)

You are going to have to sail your model cdo carrier down the local park now Pusser , seen to remember back in the early 60s on a trip to Oz you managed to get us 42 cdo lads their without hitting anything to hard .


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## Pusser (May 9, 2005)

kbee said:


> You are going to have to sail your model cdo carrier down the local park now Pusser , seen to remember back in the early 60s on a trip to Oz you managed to get us 42 cdo lads their without hitting anything to hard .


Sorry. Only just seen the post. I have a little sea story which I am pm'ing to you and 98% true which is unusual for sea stories, especially mine.


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## 107088 (Sep 18, 2007)

Pusser said:


> Due to blanket weed and chic weed throttling other plants and tadpoles too, I have given up the fight and it is now filled in. Also this will presumably get the snakes to move on to wetter pastures but I did find a baby snake and took it down to the stream with newts and some tadpoles who must be very late developers.
> 
> But I am a bit sad because I have probably caused the deaths of lhundreds of little creatures in this 30 square yard monument to man's incompetance and igorance that I built with my own two hands. 8) (And a shovel 8O )
> A beautiful fox that up until then has avoided the savage attacks of the gentry and their dogs, Eva Heron who used my pond as a Sushi Bar, King Fisher the 1st used to pop in, loads of birds bathed on the sand beach it had and frogs held annual orgies in it. Had some beautiful lillies which now lay under ground as I was told I could get done for fly tipping if I released them on to the river. And of course our resident grass snake family who had a soft spot for Cuisses de Grenouille. (..and the rest...  )
> ...


This, I have to admit, is the most traginc thread I have read for weeks.


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## Pusser (May 9, 2005)

bandaid said:


> This, I have to admit, is the most traginc thread I have read for weeks.


Don't I know it. My throat tightens up everytime I think of the poor ugly tadpole never to turn into a beautiful frog. 8O


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## 107088 (Sep 18, 2007)

[

Don't I know it. My throat tightens up everytime I think of the poor ugly tadpole never to turn into a beautiful frog. 8O 




Oi, now then no need to get personnal about the way I loo...............oh. I see, tadpole in the pond.


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## charlieivan (Apr 25, 2006)

Pusser said:


> kbee said:
> 
> 
> > You are going to have to sail your model cdo carrier down the local park now Pusser , seen to remember back in the early 60s on a trip to Oz you managed to get us 42 cdo lads their without hitting anything to hard .
> ...


Never mind sending a pm, post the sea story so we can all enjoy it!!!!


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## vicdicdoc (May 14, 2005)

We demand the sea story - Ra Ra Ra !


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## Pusser (May 9, 2005)

The problem is, I am sure I posted it already on here but cannot find it using search so it may have been trashed as unsuitable. The original I did had a few choice words in it and all I have is the rewritten story without the vulgarity which becomes me. But I would not have written a Sunday School version had it not been for posting on here so I just don't know what has happened. i am waiting to see if the pm I sent is answered and whether he has seen it before then I shall know. 

The orignal version was for the website Lost Oppos where Oppos that do not know where they are meet. 8O


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## 107558 (Oct 10, 2007)

Pusser.

I can thoroughly recommend driving large farm machinery.

Some years ago my Brother won an Auction of Promises for a days mucking about on Farm Machinery. The Combine Harvester was magic and some of the other stuff was unbelievable! And we didn't ruin anything!


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## Pusser (May 9, 2005)

JQL said:


> Pusser.
> 
> I can thoroughly recommend driving large farm machinery.
> 
> Some years ago my Brother won an Auction of Promises for a days mucking about on Farm Machinery. The Combine Harvester was magic and some of the other stuff was unbelievable! And we didn't ruin anything!


I too am looking forward to it although I just don't know when I can fit it in so maybe end September some time. As he knows me quite well I am not to confident that he will let me anywhere near the controls though.


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## 108717 (Dec 12, 2007)

I too did battle for 3 years with blanket weed and water the colour of spock's blood. Ditched the [email protected] Hoselock pump and filter, replaced it with a monster the size of a dustbin and now some occasional maintenance keeps pond crystal clear. 

The fish now have tan-lines


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