Messages

451

Pond Chat / Re: SNOWING

« on: October 28, 2008, 08:00:53 PM »

Well that's Global Warming for  ya!   

We had flurries yesterday with some freezing rain/sleet. Unusual for this time of year. My Cannas and Green beans are dead. Luckily I brought the orchids inside along with the Taro.

Reedman, you are correct. Another six month winter.  I wish I'd had cleaned my filtration last weekend, when it was nicer weather... :'( As it is today, the leaves clogged up the stream so bad that my pond lost 6" of water and the Sequence was spitting air. Had to remove all string algae & clear some rocks from the stream to keep the water flowing. Did I expect anything less? Nope. But it's that realization that winter is upon us that gets me. Lots of clouds and lots of snow.
Bad Ju-Ju.

 

452

Chit Chat / Re: Carved our pumpkins yesterday

« on: October 27, 2008, 08:20:21 PM »

Jessica, great job on the pumpkins! I don't get the reference to Phil Fulmer, but we are not football people.

greenthumbnails, your "Jack-o-Peppers" are adorable. Shows you don't have to have pumpkins to make a great Jack-o-Pepper.


Where has the time gone? We have our pumpkins and have yet to carve them. With all the homework the kids are getting, I'll have to pull them out of school to do it.
The schoolwork is ruthless this year. No time to be a kid, no time for play.

453

Chit Chat / Re: any hikers out there?

« on: October 27, 2008, 08:11:24 PM »

If you like smooth trails with no rattlesnakes, Illinois is a wonderful place to hike. We have bogs, fantastic forest preserves, state parks, long bike trails, etc. Just don't come now... (snow today!).

454

Chit Chat / Re: 3//4 ton truck

« on: October 27, 2008, 08:08:23 PM »

I like my Honda Odyssey. I can fit 4' x 8' sheets of plywood in it, a toilet, and still have enough room for a couple stock tanks, filtration stuff, an entire Lego collection, the cooler full O food, AND beach stuff. All at the same time (kids ride on roof).

455

Chit Chat / Re: Mountain Lion Loose In Our Neighborhood. . .

« on: October 27, 2008, 08:02:45 PM »

LI is not one big city like some people think. It's 150 miles long. Less than 50 miles wide at widest point.
Only the west end, about 1/3, is urban.
Where I live is VERY rural, 75+% or body shop work is from deer strikes.

It's still around. Multiple sightings over the weekend and one last night that had all the cops out circling our neighborhood with floodlights on. Got a few phone calls from neighbor-cops to stay inside.
There is a horse farm 1/10 mile east and all the horses were whinnying and screaming.
Something was definitely out there! 

Had to walk Jamie out to the bus stop this morning, armed and dangerous. 

[snip]

Sheesh, I wish this forums software wouldn't crunch the pix so horribly!

Ditto on the pics.

Did you look like the Sarah Palin action figure? 

Loved the satellite pics.  Love LI and miss it much. I hope they find the cat soon. The best I came to real wildlife on LI was a pheasant in our yard, and seeing a red fox on Northern State Pkwy (it made it across  ). I wonder where the cat came from? I guess you're right in that it was somebody's pet until it got too large. Hard to imagine a mountain Lion hitching a ride on the Orient Point ferry. Though I guess it could happen? After all, they let my kids on board. 

Marla & Steve, I remember that. Do you get the Roe Conn show on WLS 890 up by you? They had pretty hilarious commentary when the cat was in the news.

 OTOH, poor little kitty. Must be scary being a cat outside your natural environment.

456

Chit Chat / Re: Need a Recharger

« on: October 25, 2008, 07:07:25 PM »

So you actually called Oster? What if you tried a different approach, called them up, and said that your charger no longer works? Maybe just getting a different person on the phone can do the trick.

457

Chit Chat / Re: My new carport

« on: October 25, 2008, 06:57:48 PM »

Jerry that looks great! I hope it works out for you, but I can't figure out why you need one in beautiful California!?

I'd love to get one of those for my hubby's car, he parks it outside in the snow and ice all winter long. The car he NEVER drives gets the primo space inside the garage. 

458

Chit Chat / Re: Can I disconnect the woofer in my radio?

« on: October 25, 2008, 06:53:11 PM »

Johns, that's an interesting setup. You have effectively created a soundboard in your floor.  How do you deal with phase resistance (IE two woofers compete with each other if they are out-of-phase)? I had lots of trouble with my old Advents, they always seemed out of phase.
 
Julles, open it up, disconnect one wire that goes to the speaker. You might be able to remove the woofer. That could take a lot of disassembly.
However, if this is a "full range" speaker (as they usually are in portables), then you will lose ALL the audio. You have to find out if there are separate tweeter & midrange speakers before you go and disconnect the big one.
If you do have separate tweeter & midrange, than it's really just that one wire.

You'll probably get much more educated responses if you go to an audiophile website.

459

Chit Chat / Re: Is it a sign

« on: October 23, 2008, 05:59:05 PM »

I'm excited about the chest freezer too, I can get a deal on large cuts of cheap meat for the dogs and freeze it ahead.  It's really tough to feed the dogs raw meat and bones with these tiny freezers I have.  I gave up recently and put them back on dry dog food and I can tell the difference in their coats and they are all gaining weight. 

 

I want to get a dog, and want to feed it right as well. Hopefully your new system will work for them.

In our condo the reefer is also really small

I'd keep the dogs away from the "reefer" though.  Bad dogs!

The Human digestive tract isn't that much different from a dog. Steak is good for both humans and dogs. 

So Kim, did you get your fridge???

460

Pond Chat / Re: Purple Vs Blue?

« on: October 23, 2008, 07:41:58 AM »

I've never been able to figure that out.

However, my brain has overcome that cognitive dissonance by employing the following logic:

1. Red is red, and blue is blue.
2. Purple can be made by mixing red and blue.
3. A purple flower must have some blue in it.
4. Therefore, a purple flower may be said to be blue.

I dunno if you can call that logical. 

Here is a Delphinium that I think is very blue-



This is Electra. Blue, or purple?

461

Chit Chat / Re: Braeden came home, went back, UPDATE

« on: October 23, 2008, 07:32:05 AM »

I hope Braeden is feeling better today.

Esther, I wonder if the Docs would OK some probiotics to get Braeden's intestines back to normal? Surgery messes them up bad, like having your biofilter crash and the pump break. Don't know if they really work, though... they say it takes two weeks to cycle a biofilter whether you use a product or not.

462

Chit Chat / Re: Winter wood

« on: October 23, 2008, 07:24:47 AM »

Wow, Steve, you have been busy! Looks like you're pretty set for the season. Let's hope we have a mild winter!

463

Chit Chat / Re: Is it a sign

« on: October 23, 2008, 07:16:58 AM »

Kim, congrats. I really hope you like your new fridge. 

I have fridge stories too.  When we moved to Virginia and bought a house, the owners wanted an extra 1200$ for the fridge. We were like 'are you kidding?'. We almost canceled the deal but the real estate agents said they'd each forfeit 600$ of their commission so the folks could get the money for that fridge. I don't understand why they had such a connection to that silly appliance. When we had friends over, they would comment on what a nice fridge it was. I don't know why.

After a few years here in Illinois, I decided to get rid of the side-by-side for a traditional freezer-on-top fridge and it's not all that great.

My dream is to have a full size fridge AND a full size freezer. I'm not good with freezers, when I try to get something everything else seems to fall out and it's overstuffed most of the time.

464

Chit Chat / Re: Mail Box vs. Punks

« on: October 16, 2008, 05:34:08 PM »

I've been at war with the mailbox vandals as well.

When we moved in to our house here, it had an ugly black mailbox on a post. So I took the post, added a gingerbread bracket from Home Depot, stenciled a new, white mailbox with ivy, name, & house numbers. Painted the post white, too. It looked really pretty and I got a lot of compliments from the neighbors.

Within a week, some kids kicked the lattice gingerbread and broke it off. Next day, I found a huge dent in the box (baseball bat type dent) None of the kids ever fessed up to it, although I think I know who did it and offered "immunity" if they came over and helped me glue it back together. It doesn't help that the bus stop for all three schools (GS,MS, HS) are all at the end of my driveway. It could have been any one of those kids being bored waiting for the school bus.

Oh well, we've gone through a couple of versions of the same mailbox. Sometimes it's the bracket, sometimes it's the mailbox itself. Sometimes it's the flag that gets ripped off. The current mailbox is rusting now.
Someone bought a 10 acre lot next door to us with a very long driveway, and not once did those giant house-building/concrete paving/lumber trailer trucks damage our mailbox! Huge, heavy equipment never bothered our mailbox, but teenage kids? Yup.

HOWEVER, I must say that the Rustoleum paint that I used to paint my house numbers and stencil that mailbox has held up wonderfully!  Shameless plug for Rustoleum paint. 

465

Chit Chat / Re: Ernie loves...

« on: October 16, 2008, 09:10:10 AM »

They are adorable, and they both have beautiful shiny coats.

I wanted to say congrats on the new cat, looks exactly like my old one. But then I thought I should find a picture of my old one. So I found a picture of my old cat when she was about Ernie's age, but it's a tiny little pic in a tiny little frame... ahhh forget it. You've got a live one on your lap to look at. 

There is a stray cat running around here who looks a little like Ernie. Very elusive. I may try feeding it.

466

Chit Chat / Re: Braeden came home WHOOPS, sorry

« on: October 16, 2008, 09:05:39 AM »

Oh no, that stinks that he had to go back. Like Krista says, I hope it's simply because he was being a kid.

467

Chit Chat / My new little friend

« on: October 16, 2008, 09:02:25 AM »

I think the groundhog that lived here for years must have died, and this is the baby. A couple weeks ago it was a tiny little thing, but has been working hard to fatten up for the winter.
This one is much less timid than the other one. We love to feed him/her carrots, and it sits there looking at us, munching away. My veggie garden has been pretty much wiped out. 

Isn't it the cutest? I wish I knew whether it was a him or a her, my kids want to give it a name.

468

Pond Chat / Re: empty pond.. blooming aquarium ... any tips????

« on: October 14, 2008, 06:09:16 AM »

I actually like the fall when there is finally some open water. Once my hardies stop blooming, I cut them all back and love the open water effect. Seems to make the pond look bigger.

Your pond looks great, still lots of color around it.

Good luck with the trops!

469

Chit Chat / Re: Jerry / Sean, a flag for where we live?

« on: October 14, 2008, 06:05:01 AM »

Andy, Thanks. The original code I was using was wrong.

Sandye, I can see your flag. It's nice. 

470

Chit Chat / Re: Jerry / Sean, a flag for where we live?

« on: October 13, 2008, 06:53:15 PM »

I got mine here http://3dflags.com/us_states/index.html I right clicked on the flag went to properties, copied that between a couple of image tags and we are good to go....andy

I tried that and it didn't work.

471

Pond Chat / Re: winter coming soon Pond Advise Please-- Covers?

« on: October 08, 2008, 08:29:30 PM »

Anyway,  , to beat a dead rhino, for the past couple years I have ditched the whole idea of a dome/greenhouse/cover thing, and just run a small pump through the skimmer into the TT. Both years saw zero "supercooling", water ran all winter, and the same fish survival (99.5%). Unless you need your lilies to sprout two weeks earlier, a cover is unnecessary. Unless you have Koi. Different story.
Good luck.

PS, It was really cool to go into that thing in January and see a teeeensy bit of green stuff when the rest of the world was covered in several inches of white! 

472

Pond Chat / Re: winter coming soon Pond Advise Please-- Covers?

« on: October 08, 2008, 08:23:30 PM »

Frame w/ Bickal deicer in pond-



Partial collapse of heavier-duty dome-



Snow-
 

473

Pond Chat / Re: winter coming soon Pond Advise Please-- Covers?

« on: October 08, 2008, 07:18:51 PM »

IRISCOTTAGE.
Try making the Greg Bickal Deicer, its cheap, works great, only uses two light bulbs and one can add an air hose if needed.
Depending on the size of your pond you can make it in various sizes.
First a Floating platform, usualy 2 ' PVC. Then a Container(from wal mart etc" inside mount two light fixtures on the Roof(inside) not too close to the plastic, then if U wish the air hose.
I have been using them for about 6 years. Low on watts, and has never failed me, even at way below Zero. I can send pictures if U want.
RichardK.

I have a couple of Bickal Deicers, one for the upper and one for the lower. This year it looks like we'll need to rebuild them as they've been in service for a good many years.
I've made domes-



That one collapsed with 4" snow-



Inside:



We made a better one in following years. But gave it up because it was too hard on the surrounding landscape. I broke (crushed) several dwarf conifers while hiking around the thing trying to scrape off 4-6" of snow at a time (that can be a couple times a day around here), and the fish seemed the same in the spring.

A couple of positive differences here in zone 5 is that the biofilters cycled earlier in the season, and I had pads on the hardy waterlilies much earlier. I don't think it made a difference in when they started blooming.

I'll try and dig up pics of the heavier-duty one we made. Still had to broom off the snow, but the ends were vertical instead of sloped, so it was much stronger.

474

Pond Chat / Re: Sushi's N pygmaea seeds ... .Blooming... woohooo :) anybody else??

« on: October 08, 2008, 07:08:00 PM »

I have noticed a few blooms on mine, but they are coming up in places I didn't expect. 

475

Pond Chat / Re: Will you purchase the Speichert's newest release?

« on: October 08, 2008, 07:05:14 PM »

Thanks for bumping this, Richard, I had missed it.

I had also paid for a new 2-year subscription and was really angry at what they did (at first). I had suspected for a while that there was something wrong. When Sept 11 happened, Sue was still a still a semi- regular contributor to the forum, but things went south after she stopped moderating and there were tons of trolls & people posting under aliases.

I know it is very hard to publish a niche magazine, and they often don't make it. I also got stiffed by Helen Nash's mag (Pond & Garden) that went under right after I renewed that subscription.

I think both of those magazines failed because the hobby of "ponding" was at it's height of 'craze', and then plummeted in popularity. There are many issues that, for some people, make it difficult to stick with- predators, maintenance (labor), water quality issues, price, leaks, high-maintenance fish, safety, differing opinions,  winter, etc.

I've been to a couple of talks by Greg S. at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and I thought they were informative.

Even with that I still think they owed their customers some kind of explanation/apology, if not a partial refund.

476

Chit Chat / Re: Braeden's surgery

« on: October 08, 2008, 06:39:49 PM »

Esther, I did pray for little Braeden today (and will continue to do so), I'm sorry I didn't post earlier. Thanks also for posting the background again, it was a reminder of what the poor little boy has gone through. I hope he pulls through this surgery with flying colors.

Hugs. 

477

Chit Chat / Re: Critters - cattle, horses, dogs

« on: October 07, 2008, 08:31:39 AM »

So, Roarke, if you like the Eggmobile just wait- there's more. It probably wouldn't apply to you since you don't have winter. But anyway, this farmer puts the cows in the barn for winter. They poop on the floor, he adds a layer of hay and some corn. They poop more, so he adds more layers of hay and some more corn. The fermenting layers provide heat for the chilly cows. By the time winter is over, the cows are standing on several feet of poop, hay, and corn. He brings the cows out the pasture in the spring, but what to do with all that mess in the barn? This is when he calls in his other workforce, the "pigerators". The pigs go into the barn and root out all that fermented corn, turning & airating the newly created "mulch" in the process.
Is that genius, or what?

Here is is his website:
http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx

You can see a bit of the Eggmobile in this short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5496QhWIWU

A much longer video of a talk he gave at Berkely:
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/events/details.php?ID=164

478

Chit Chat / Re: Recent Earthquakes in California/Nevada

« on: October 06, 2008, 06:46:48 PM »

Mikey, Thanks for the education. I had no idea that the 1906 SF quake was number 18!

479

Chit Chat / Re: Halloween is going to suck this Year

« on: October 06, 2008, 06:41:44 PM »

Maybe those Trick-Or-Treaters can pick up some good deals. 

480

Chit Chat / Re: Here's a scarey sight.

« on: October 06, 2008, 06:39:58 PM »

Pondman, you should be in the movies, too!