OK, I was hoping for some good weather to make better photos, but let it be, it has been sorrow winter with too much rain and cloud and not enogh snow and clear weather, but it's life and that's how it goes. I will split this in two stories as I will talk about two ponds.
This is a pond I dug next to my cottage. I was just about to start building something on my property that was supposed to be a garden shed and I though I'd like a water feature where I could get water for my garden. And beaver did a favour. They build a dam over irrigation channel and when I tried to cross it I found about 3 feet of water there. So I thought this was a good place to start a pond, because I'd have a constant water supply and the less you have to dig the more value of water vs money you get. My property is U shaped by irrigation channels and this pond is just a well cleared T joint of these channels. This is hot it sits in location:
And once it settled into place and we managed the dirt and the rest of the jobs the excavator came back and finished the job and build one more feature that was needed. He made a road over the channel and a drive way for me to get into my property from this side of the channel. This channel has separated two pieces of land, one owned by my, which now after investments and management extends 4.5ha ( was originally 1.5ha) and one owned by my dad witch is 7ha plus THE SWAMP (we will talk about it later).
On the other side of the road I planted quite a few of
guelder-rose that I grasped (green protection). They are my favourite shrubs because they attract numerous birds in the winter and are still very much absent in the landscape after mistreatment by forest managers.
For crossing the channel I used this foot bridge for a few years and it is on the shortest way to THE SWAMP. Surely it was us that built it
Right next to the pond we built a round "Nursery" pen, where we used willow and the traditional way of building natural fences. And that is a place where we grow our tree and shrub stock witch will be planted all over the homestead. You cannot have too many trees here
the landscape is very monocultural when you get off my property so I'd like to have as much variety as I can on my piece of land.
I cannot tell if I really anticipate the moment when the frost is over and I have to manage all these plants
I better be nice person and hopefully some friends will come along
Anyway that's how it always has been, because for one man it is waaaaay too much work. Hundreds of plants, but we've done over 1000 wild ones by now
The nursery has been chosen and done in a manner that it would be moist during hot summers and shaded in the hottest part of the day. Plants love it and once we plant these out we will grow some veggies for an experiment and once that is done this will become a Nursery for our growing kids in the family.
And this is how I see the pond from my cottage window:
So a few trees will have to give their way, but I'll make sure I can easily see what's happening there.
And that is from back yard:
Because it was dug on the T joint of the channels it got a name of: BIKINI BEACH. And from birds view it's nothing else but bikini indeed.
The channels empty in the time of drought but I will build a "monk" on the end of it so I could have the pond full all the time. That's a metal frame for a start.
Ok, I can never stop talking about this with so much things happening and the fish and the wildlife, the ups and downs, the never ending fight with weeds and stuff. But let me grab a cup of coffee and I'll show you THE SWAMP