Gill Passman wrote:
...
...even though all I can aspire to is a "back-yard mud puddle"......
I also totally love the concept of the mud pool that you, Jim & Phyllis,
Galen, Gary and whoever the new poster was (can't find the thread for
all the other noise)......and the one where my Dad lives.....should be
back up there in a few months time so will take some pics (wasn't
appropriate last visit)....
IIRC you have a number of "mud ponds" so it would be great to hear not
only from you but the others on the pro's and cons....having only a
small area but a heavy clay soil I did consider it when I built the
ill-fated pond around 7 years ago but wimped out for pond liner....but
talking only a few hundred gallons it probably would not have been
sustainable and would have needed multiple top ups....
"Back-yard mud puddle" would about describe mine. I went out and measured
the one next to the house and then tried to convert the square feet into
acres and it was so small even the conversion program snickered. It is
only about 50 ft in diameter. It doesn't get stagnant at all, mainly
because sometime back I took Roy's advice, canned any ideas I had about a
filter and got me an aerator. I tend to be a "bigger must be better" type
and so I probably got about 3 or 4 sizes larger than I needed, and fired it
up. Even the frogs were a bit surprised, and for days you could find them
bobbing around in the water, just staring at the bubbles. It adds just
enough gentle motion to the water that the mosquitos don't seem to like it.
At least I haven't had much of a problem with them. It may be that the
place attracts way more dragonflies than it used to when it was a junk
pile, maybe it's a combination, I really have no idea.
The other two ponds on the property don't get stagnant either, though they
are much larger. The one in back seems to be fed by a spring, and has a
constant outflow. It looks to be almost an acre. The other out front was
obviously dug (by someone long before me) as an aerial view shows. One end
of the front one sticks into a swamp, so it's kind of hard to tell how big
it really is. The dug part looks to be about a half-acre.
--
Galen Hekhuis