Been pretty fortunate the last couple of weeks. We managed to avoid the
tornadoes and floods in central Arkansas. Got 14 inches of rain in the
last week. The heaviest day was 6 inches. We had been in a drought
situation but no more. Our lake rose 6 feet during this period.

Left the LED light string that encircles the pond on during this period.
These are really good not to short out in the rain like the old style
lights were. A few trips of the GFI and I have to replace the outlet. I
was surprised to look out Monday evening to see that the pump wasn't
running. (The pump/GFI and whatever else I happen to be running are
powered by an outdoor "power center" which consists of two outlets, one
of them GFI and feeding the second outlet, protected by a plastic snap
down bubble and mounted on a metal stake.) Monday's precipitation was
mostly in the form of mist and not rain so I was a little surprised. I
ran a power cord to the pump until I could look into things.

This afternoon I took off the cover and removed the outlet and was
greeted by a swarm of ants. They'd build a nest of wet bark chips
between and all around the outlets. I guess this is the culprit as it's
happened before. Replaced the GFI and everything is hunky dory.

c'est la vie!

Next week: clean the filter falls. ugh

Ant poison?

On 5/5/2011 6:36 AM, Phyllis and Jim wrote:
Ant poison?

I use the baits but it's been too wet for that. The ants are on the move
now though so I'll strategically place some around the pond and elsewhere.