05 Wednesday Nov 2025
Posted in family, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, clean-ish, family, garden, moments, nature, pond, pumps, water, weather, widow
cleaned out the first of the garden water pumps last week…
always happy when they are all clean-ish and packed away for the winter…
this morning I was able to pull out, clean and put away the last two…
all the jobs in the garden are done and it is now ready for the winter…
11 Thursday Sep 2025
Posted in life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, contaminants, fish, fish tanks, goldfish, koi, moments, pond, project, pumps, water, weather, widow
finally got around to filling the fish tanks yesterday…
the process took over an hour, as each tank had to be filled and then the pump was cleaned, plugged in and turned on…
I was pleased as after each pump was cleaned, it started up without any issues…
now the pumps will run for three or four weeks before any fish come inside, to be sure that the water has no chlorine or other contaminants in it…
happy this piece of work is done and I don’t have to think about the fish coming inside until much later;-)… woohoo…
03 Tuesday Jun 2025
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, clean, garden, gunk, moments, nature, plants, ponds, pumps, Technology, weather, widow
did some work on the small pond pumps, which are used to move the water in the bathtub pond and add more oxygen in the main pond…
climbed into the pond and brought the pump onto the edge of the deck and cleaned out all the gunk that was in it and then put it back into the pond…
brought up the second pump and after climbing into the bathtub pond, got it set in the correct spot so it wouldn’t send the water out of the pond… then it was turned on and that pond was topped up…
now there won’t be any issues with mosquitoes and I’m going to add a few more plants to that one…
the garden is coming along nicely…
12 Monday May 2025
Posted in business, family, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, big job, blessed, garden, housemate, moments, nature, picked, pond, pumps, rocks, water, weather, wetvac, widow
started working on the pond on May 3rd… it is a big job…
brought out the pond pump and removed as much water as possible… aimed the hose towards the cedars to give them a good soaking…
the waterfall area has to be done separately, after I removed the two floating planters…
then I left it so that the leaves and twigs could dry out a bit before removing them…
the next day, the wetvac came out and it removed quite a few leaves, and a few rocks, lol…
next I got into the pond and picked out the majority of the last leaves in the dry areas… that evening, my housemate finished draining the waterfall area and cleaned up debris from the bottom of the pond…
on the 9th, we obtained the foam to fill the spaces between the rocks so the fish won’t be able to hide when we are trying to catch them in the fall, lol…
rearranging and foaming the rocks took two days of concentrated work and it was hot out…
Sunday, May 11, the pumps were in, the necessary rocks have been foamed, a few flower pots have been added for fish to hide in and now we wait for the foam to cure so the water can go in…
this afternoon the pond was filled, woohoo… excited to watch the first of the water enter, using a dedicated hose which goes right into it… took an hour and a half to fill the bottom portion and just under thirty minutes to fill the waterfall area… that had to be done with the regular hose, as it isn’t connected to the lower area unless the waterfall is running…
it will be a few weeks of it running before the fish make their way from the winter condo;-)…
unfortunately, the plugs on the post near the pond are not working, so for now I am using an extension cord to provide electricity to the two pond pumps… always something, lol…
so happy to hear it running;-)…
18 Friday Apr 2025
Posted in life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cleaning, clogging, fish, glass, goldfish, moments, nature, pumps, tank, water, widow
Wednesday, I spent time cleaning two of the pumps…
Thursday was glass cleaning day, lol…
luckily it didn’t take too long and now the tanks look so much better;-)…
seems to me the pumps are clogging up more quickly than previously;-(…
16 Sunday Mar 2025
Posted in health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, clean, fish, fishtanks, moments, nature, project, pumps, top up, water, widow
Friday’s project was to clean out the pumps on each of the three fishtanks…
it always slips down towards the bottom of the list, but once I get going, it isn’t that difficult, and doesn’t take that long either…
usually I only do one or two, but this time I did all of them at the same time…
the pumps are now running beautifully, and I topped up the water in each one… usually I do the topping up on Mondays, but was just a bit sooner this time;-)…
08 Saturday Feb 2025
Posted in life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, books, cleaning, fish tanks, fixed, happy, moments, oopsie, plants, pumps, trickery, widow
had an oopsie yesterday as I was in the process of cleaning out two of the pumps…
the pothos that sits on the shelf above the tanks had gotten really full and long, so I decided to trim it, sigh…
apparently I should have measured, lol…
the reason the plant is there is to cover up the space between two of the tanks where the pump fits…
so, once the pumps were cleaned up, a little bit of trickery took place…
I found a vase and filled it with the cut off pieces of the plant trying to have as many as possible high inside the vase…
it was still obvious that there was a space, so I added three paperback books that I had already read and put the vase back….
can’t even tell now… and once all the cuttings take root, I will pot them up and add them to the indoor garden, whew;-)…
30 Monday Sep 2024
Posted in health, life, moments, nature, retirement, technology, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, fish, garden, hose, moments, moving, nature, Nestor’s, plants, pumps, tanks, water, weather, widow, winter condo
following along with taking the netting off the pond and the fish being happier, I’ve been working on their winter condo…
rarely do I clean the tanks when they head out to the pond, lol…
so, I’ve been working on emptying tanks, cleaning them and getting them set up for the big move…
this year I decided to move the small tank from the living room to the dining room credenza with the other two tanks…
the plan is to have plants on the ledge where the tank was…
to do that I had to empty the two big tanks so that I could move them along so there would be room to fit the third one in… they also were scrubbed to get most of the algae off them…
and of course the one is the same depth, but about an inch and a half shorter than the others… we found some wood in the garage that brought it up to the perfect height…
we ordered a pump to use to empty them and after waiting for it to arrive, when I used it on Saturday, it worked for about five minutes and then quit, sigh… so I filled a jug and dumped it into the toilet over and over as well as watering some of the planters outside…
I quite like how they look all together…
after nearly completely emptying them and moving them, I filled them with the outside hose… I am so happy that it extends to a hundred feet so it can do things like this…
two of the three pumps started with no problem… unfortunately, the biggest one did not… it had been giving me a bit of trouble last year so I will be heading to Nestor’s to either replace the pump or the whole system… we have had that one for many years…
once it is running, it will likely be three or four weeks to be sure the water is clean and ready, before the fish come in…
little steps;-)…
11 Sunday Feb 2024
Posted in health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, evaporating, fish tanks, house, humidity, moments, nature, pumps, water, widow
spent some time topping up all three fish tanks…
the water is evaporating at a fast rate…
it seems like only a week ago that I had added a bit of water to each of them…
I guess the good news is that the humidity level in the house is good, lol… and the pumps are much quieter the higher the water level;-)…
30 Monday Oct 2023
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, breaking, cold, fish, garden, goldfish, grandson, ice, moments, nature, plants, pond, pumps, snow, time, water, weather, widow, winter
Saturday, late in the afternoon, after breaking the ice on the pond, we caught twenty-one of the goldfish…
the pond water was filled with leaves and was rather brown and murky…
it was quite the job as, at one point, my grandson went into it barefoot with his pants rolled up to cut down the water lilies and grasses (I think it was about -12°C in the air)…
but that really helped catch a bunch of them that had been hiding under the lily leaves… they were moving slower in the cold, but still snuck out of the net… also, some of the catching was in the dark, lol…
then they sat in pails in the house for hours before getting moved into the three tanks…
we were careful to be sure to keep size and numbers similar in the tanks so that there is sufficient space for all of them…
we thought we had them all, but on Sunday we discovered five more, woohoo…
now, the pumps have been removed from the pond, and it is apparently going into the winter with water in it, lol…
herbiggirlpants 