Storm ravaged my lily ponds only!

[miguynmkoi]

What a mess!!!!  I would have taken photos but it's so depressing to see such havoc!  The storm blew through early in the morning.  We heard some loose tins or plastic pots blow around and rain hitting the windows, no big deal. 

But this morning checking in on the fish....we witnesses how the wind blew hard enough to blow all the fairy and azolla moss out of all the ponds,  whip up the water and tip all the lily pots over, dumping all the lilies into one big muddy mess.  All my beautiful parrots feather and other water plants look like a car ran over them....in the ponds!  Is it possible that a tornado happened right over these ponds....only?  Everything else is wet but find as expected after all the wind and rain we got.

This happened to all 4 ponds.  The water lettuce in the big koi pond got whipped out of the pond too.  I have feeder goldies in the lily ponds and they are very calm and happy but I haven't seen them.  Worst, while I was picking up all the moss of the ground I was also picking up snails and small lily bulbs, there was a round one I was puzzled about, turns out it's an eyeball of a goldfish!  UGGG!  How'd that happen?

I spent most of the day repotting ripped up lilies and tomorrow I hope to clean out the muddy water.  The storm is still waiting around the corner to come back in.  Yeah I'm sad.  But I can fix it....

[Argos5]

That's terrible...it sounds a lot like a raccoon attack...were the lily leaves ripped ?

[Mikey]

Sorry to hear of all that damage.  For some reason I thought your ponds were more protected from such adverse weather. 

The predicted "storm" didn't really materialize here.  We got a very gentle rain, perhaps 1/4 inch at best. 

[Esther]

Oh no. That is so depressing. I hope you were able to get it straightened out. Have the fish finally surfaced? It seems odd to find a fish part. It doesn't seem like the fish could be damaged by the storm.

[miguynmkoi]

I also thought it was raccoon or something - we haven't seen raccoons here in many years.  I've been looking and looking at all the damage and all the lily leaves unripped are still attached to the stems but not to the root bulb. The wind was blowing from from the south west the way the fairy moss and azolla is spread out beyond the ponds in almost a fan shape.  The pond tub next to where I found the fish eyeball (really fresh loss) does not show any sign of a creature disturbance and the azolla weeds is laid out perfectly like a carpet on one side of the tub.  There are feeder fish in these smaller ponds but I never kept count of them but they are pretty big now, about 3" long.  I haven't found the one eyed fish yet nor any ++ ones.

The water in the ponds feel really cold, no fun to have to mess with.  I have the lilies back in their pots.  I need to clean out the ponds to get all the dirt and rocks out only for the sake of the fishies in there.  The only good news is the parrot feathers are bouncing back from their flatten state. 

During the first storm we had to have at least 2" from all the containers I lay out in the center of the yard just to catch clean straight from the heavens water for the ponds.  The containers I use to catch gutter water just goes to the garden since it is dirtier.

What's a little more excitement?  Just enough to push setting up Christmas decorations up to another day.

[mascot]

Sorry to hear that Annette!  That kinda makes my water bubble incident pale by comparison!! 

When I had to retrieve the boulders from the bottom and do other maintenance, the water temp was below 50....way too cold, and I was just reaching in with my arms!

[miguynmkoi]

Thanks Michael.  Really not so bad just work I wasn't expecting to do until Spring.  Yeah it's cold.  Still need to catch the feeder fish and change water though.  Procrastinating.........

[mascot]

I procrastinate a bit too sometimes.  It was my New Year's Resolution to stop procrastinating last year, but I decided to wait until this year.  Maybe next year...I dunno. 

[happyoutsidegirl]

Oh Dear Annette, I'm so sorry to hear all that.  :'( If I should get such a storm I'm afraid everything would half to wait tell April or may to clean up. It's so bloomen cold here there is NO WAY I'd go into the water even just my arms. I hope all works out ok for ya.

[Jerry]

Even my overhad net was bown to smithereens.   I have a nice woven one of 30% shade fabric to replace it.  I will on the first nice day

[Esther]

Sorry Jerry. But still I guess you got some needed rain.

[miguynmkoi]

Even though your netting was wrecked in the winds your pond/garden looks marvelous 

My back fence on my property, standing up by vines, finally got blown over by the winds we had on Christmas morning.  What a way to greet neighbors in the morning    Wonderful neighbor (woodworker) started repairing the fence this week but only got as far as the posts and frame work up.

The rain is attracting a lot of ribbits, as in froggies    Everything OK, just a little flatter.

[Jerry]

I hope we attract frogs too.  20 years ago they existed in a tiny seasonal stream near by.  It is now a cement underground culvert.  Yea to the rain.  We are well ahead of last year.
The heavy shade fabric ought to last a lot longer.  Photo soon

[miguynmkoi]

If I'm not mistaken the frogs are out early this year.  The weather is mild for winter and we have the bonus of rain this winter! 

We live near a good size creek where on warm nights there is a large symphony of frogs calling out to each other, almost sounds and feels like tropical jungle minus the sweat 

[marla]

The storms you guys had will now head our way.  Today we were a very unsual 51*F, lots of snow melting (still ice on the ponds though), so much that it was foggy all day, huge 40 car pile up on the freeway I here near Madison.  Suppose to rain maybe also, so possible flodding, ground is still pretty frozen.  Snow later once your storm reaches us.  Glad that you all made it through ok.

[Desertponder]

Sorry about all of your pond damage.
We did not have winds here but we've been catching snow and rain since Saturday.
A friend who's family lives in Northern CA said the winds blew the roof off their
barn and it landed on their brand new Ford Explorer smashing its roof completely down.

[miguynmkoi]

It's sad to hear about all the damage the winds bring.  I think it's the most destructive in my yards.  Luckily not so bad someones gets hurt.  Just too much work to clean things up. 

For the past 3 nights we've had 3 storms blow through with wind and rain.  We do need the rain.

[marla]

Yard clean up after storms is a lot of work, have done it many times.  Good luck, hope your weather gets better.
We have had record warm temps, today in some areas it hit 63*F, came with a price though multiple tornados. SIL's mom, grandparents and sister live in that area but were all fine.   All we had was lots of rain, and because the ground is still frozen standing water.  Ponds still frozen but almost all the snow is melted.  Yesterday's fog caused a huge pile up on the interstate near the state capital in Madison about an hour from here.  Early reports were 40 cars, but when all counted it was 100 vehicles, 2 fatalities and numerous injuries, closed down both sides of the interstate for hrs.