I finished the pond for this year. I put in a whole bunch of flowering plants and they are taking very nicely. The water is becoming much clearer because we got a new filter for it. We also started putting in live bacteria that eats the algae growing in the water. There is one problem with the pond so far. A Blue Heron came along one day and ate three of my six fish. I had them for three years and they were getting big, but the bird just came right along and ate them up. I put a temporary net over the pond to protect the other ones. They are afraid to come to the surface now. They won't even come up to eat, they wait until the food falls to the bottom. I put a picture of the finished pond below.
Another new thing I got was a composter. It came from Sam's Club and it was only around $35. We put a small plastic container in the kitchen and I made a does and don't list. Everyone in the house listens and does it so I am glad about that. In about two months I will start having finished fertilizer that I can put on my gardens.
A whole bunch of new plants were put around the house recently. Most of them are fruits and vegetable plants. There are banana peppers, some kind of hot pepper, green beans, strawberries, pumpkins, lettuce, parsley, mint, chives, and broccoli. The strawberries, both peppers, green beans, chives, parsley, mint, pumpkins, and lettuce have either started making fruits or flowering.
I went on a weekend camping trip and it was the worst thing I have EVER done. I got there Friday afternoon and it was 80 degrees and sunny so we set everything up quickly and easily thinking it was going to be like that the entire weekend. I wake up at 2am with my tent flat on top of me and hurricane Katrina's child was upon us. There was 65 mph winds and it was pouring down rain. It was still warm though at this point. So I got out of my sleeping bag and put the tent back up. Then once I was done I ran to help the other people set up there tents and when I got back mine was down again. I repeated this process about three times, until I just decided to sleep under my flat tent. Then the next morning the wind hadn't died down at all and it went from about 80 degrees to about 40 degrees. It was terrible. So we cooked breakfast and set off on the meetings we had to go to. We came back and all the tents were down again. We set them back up and went out again. After the last meeting we returned and the dining flys that we cook/eat under were all tied together to help keep them from blowing down. All of a sudden they ripped out of the ground and flew into the air above the trees. The poles in them then started to fall out and everyone scattered so they didn't get hit (the cars couldn't move so they got banged up). Once the main canvas part hit the ground it started to roll and took out about two thirds of everyone else's tents. We then went into panic mode and guess what happens next. It snows. We went through four seasons in one weekend. It was the worst camping trip I have ever gone on. Also the gear we had (half of which was destroyed by the winds) was brand new because the building it was housed in collapsed over the winter because of the extreme snow. So we bought new stuff for the real trip, because this was the practice, then it was smashed over the winter. Then we replaced that and it was destroyed by the winds on this trip.
