On 9/22/2017 12:54 PM, Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:

if you are only using the water for gardens and
flushing the emergency toilet you could put a screen
over it to keep the raccoonians out of there and
have a few black mollies, guppies or other surface
feeders to keep the skeeters down. or an even
finer mesh to keep them from getting in and laying
eggs. though to me the joy of keeping a pond would
be to be able to have a froggy or toad spot. i miss
the good old days when we had ponds to swim in out
back.
I'd introduce "mosquito fish" (as have done with another small
manmade "pond"), available free from a number of sources here in FL. Of
course, some shade would be necessary, most likely to be floating
aquatic "pad lilys" as is frequently done to shelter so-caled "goldfish"
carp. The rain barrels are screened and, in addition, we control
mosquitoes with Bt "dunks" and a little goes a long long way so that'll
continue. I have toads in the garden and frogs in another small pond.
The cats drink from it and the raccoons do visit it but do no harm.
They are not hostile, just mildly destructive nuisances. Anyone who can
tolerate a 4y/o child can tolerate raccoons and I don't begrudge them
the water access. Now, the wading pool put out there for the cats'
benefit or the watering stations in the garden are different stories.
The signs I put up don't do any good so I just live with it.

And coons are right tasty if you get all of the glands out of the
critter before cooking and eating. I don't know what a coon pelt sells
for today but, at around 12, I made a good bit of money selling the
pelts of the ones we ate and kept out of the chicken yard by shooting
them. I've seen a raccoon kill a dozen chickens just for the hell of it
and only eat the heads. I never had a raccoon mess up my garden, they
went for the chickens, pigeons, and even the caged rabbits. They may be
cute little bandits but they will scratch, bite, whatever they can do to
you. Be careful of them or maybe you have peaceful raccoons, ours fought
all the time.