New Snake!

Today we got in the pool after our workout, and noticed a friend swimming in the pool.  We used a 32 ounce water cup to scoop him out and free him out of the pool cage.  Just looked him up, and he's a ring necked snake, only slightly venomous :)

Peafowl Triplets Looking up at Mom

Mama Peafowl brought the 3 tiny peafowl babies to visit for snacks today.  They hung around this afternoon for hours, which was awesome while I sat and read on the computer.  At one point, mom jumped up on the pool cage and the babies were like, uh, mom, do you want us to go up THERE?  So they just hung out below, cute and agitated :)

3 New Baby Peafowl

We thought we'd seen them all for the year, and then a new mom just brought her 3 new ones to show them off.

These are tiny - smaller than the other 4 we've seen so far.

Baby Duck First Flight!

Yesterday, September 7th, was the first day we saw one of the duck family fly.  The family is now six baby ducks (mom left LOL), and yesterday one of the six took off flapping like crazy and flew a few low laps over the pond and the beach.  He made at least three laps, probably four, and landed in a bit of a crash landing in the northeast cove water.  The other ducks swam quickly over to "Flapper" and congratulated him in duck language on his dangerous and brave flight!

So amazing getting to see all this from the "control room" window where we're always hanging out.

Mark says Flapper did another lap this morning :)

UPDATE: FLAPPER FLIES AWAY!

We hoped it would never happen, and then in an instant he's gone. It's Flapper, he's flown away. Fortunately Mary was watching and saw his exit or else we would have thought something awful happened to him. Nope. In what appeared to be one of his low orbit "Wright Brothers" test flights around the big P2 pond Flapper powered up his engines and took off towards the east, away he went.

It was a joyous and sad moment as our little baby duck flew away, out into the cold cruel world. His five brothers and sisters swam out to the middle of the pond as if they were looking for him to come back but alas little Flapper did not return. Hopefully he found a big pond to splash down in.

Mary promised me Flapper would return Sunday (tomorrow) but I'm doubtful. He's gone out into the world to discover his fame and fortune. Good luck little guy. Hope we see you again. Thanks for coming to P2.

Q U A C K ! ! !

ANOTHER UPDATE: QUACK QUACK QUACK! FLAPPER CAME BACK!

Low and behold, we awoke sunday morning and to our joy and surprise little Flapper had rejoined his brothers and sisters, six little brown ducks swam over to the corn pile to nom breakfast, then they swam to the far end of the pond, got up on the shore in one of their favorite spots and took a nap.

Peace and Flapper returned to P2. Life is good!

IBIS BLEACHING

As we head into the fall season the Ibis are spending more time out on the lawn bleaching their brown feathers white in the bright hot afternoon sun. It's a funny process they go through to lay out and bleach their feathers in the same UV that tans humans.

First Baby Peafowl of 2018 - 8/24/2018

It's begun!  The mother peahens are starting to bring their babies to the P2 buffet for seed and other snacks.  Yesterday, 8/24/2018, we had the first sighting of a mother and baby wandering around the pole barn and starfruit tree area.  It didn't take long before the pair came around to the front.  You can see the baby on the left as a perfect scale model of the mom on the right, with the "ratty topknot" as clear giveaway that she's a baby.  Awwww!

Mark had just been lamenting the lack of peafowl kids visiting us this year and there they were, one after another came to visit. 

Finally we had a mother with three babies following her show up. When they're young peafowl all look like females. After a few more months the changes in color will begin and some of the young will transform into beautiful blue male peacocks. 

Mom and three young peafowl, the young are perfect scale models with full size feet

Young peafowl are really funny to watch, they don't know what they're doing but they are filled with attitude. Young pea kids run around in silly ways, like they're running from invisible ghosts. When they get older all that running around is chasing lizards and delicious bugs for food.

Notice how big their feet are, they are full size adult legs and feet

REMEMBERING GUPPIE

We've had six little ducks and their mother living in the big pond at P2 since July 3rd. The littlest duck of the six became disabled on Saturday August 18th, I was shocked to see him mortally wounded when he came ashore to eat. He has always been small and had a weird strut but he stayed with his siblings and hung in there. Life in the wild is really hard. Guppie is 48 days old today.

When I first saw Guppie today he was visibly walking in a horrible deformed and torturous manner, it was heart breaking to see. It was as though the whole crew of brothers and sisters realized Guppie was not going to make it. As they left the corn feeding area they all paused by Guppie, as if to say goodbye to their little brother.

Sunday Guppie did not come to the feeding area, he pushed himself into some tall grass away from the other ducks. Mary and I contemplated any life saving strategies for Guppie but it was not to be, by 4 'o'clock a little motionless body laid lifeless by the pond. By morning his remains were gone, the dinner for some other wild animal that forages on third-shift.

Thankfully the five other young ducks in our brood are doing well. Today is Monday August 20th and there are 10 ducks hanging out together and schwim schwimming together. Our little family of ducks has been joined by several other ducks that "momma duck" approves of, she chased all the others away. For some reason she's letting the kids party with strangers today, perhaps part of the process of socialization.

I'll miss Guppie, I always cheer for the underdog, his beautiful spirit lives on in my memory.

Good luck next time little guy!

Duck Family Nomming Mystery Water Snacks

Quick Baby Duck Bath

A short capture of the duck family finishing their morning bath.

Paint by Number - began 8/11/2018

This paint by number acrylic painting "kit" is for fun and inspiration.

I love this review on Amazon... "Finished the painting....mine doesn't look ANYTHING like the example, but I like it anyway!"
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1K7LRQBSW6HEU/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B075B3NLD9

Starting today!

The canvas came rolled nicely - from China - with no instructions...  I got the little easel and canvas backing from Michaels.

Before ironing and mounting the canvas.

Ready to start.

Final version - in oils - by a professional artist!  My results will certainly be dramatically different using acrylics and paint by number.  Note the cute little ducks in the water and let's see how mine turn out...  

And here's why "paint by number" kits are helpful to beginner artists for learning painting skills.

http://myreeves.com/en/tips-tricks/paint-numbers-tips-tricks/

NEW LOW WEIGHT, YAY!

COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES

NUFF SAID!

Ron Jon!

Mark, Mary and Paul on our adventure to Cocoa Beach's Ron Jon Surf Shop.... amazing!

Duck Family Going Boating

They LOVE the pallet yacht :)

BABY HUEY THE GIANT BLUE HERON, JULY 5TH, 2018

HUEY (AKA MR. CLEANHEAD) LOVES OUR FLOATING POND PLATFORM

We made this platform by stuffing a pallet with swim noodles from the dollar store. Many animals have enjoyed floating on the platform but none have ridden it more than "Cleanhead" Huey the giant blue heron.

Huey rides the platform and fishes off the side. We have several giant herons that have visited but this one has a long white upper neck and head which earned him the blues moniker of "Cleanhead".

This heron is less scared of humans, he often rides the platform nearby while Mary feeds the panfish in the big pond. Huey adds a unique and wonderful personality to our pond (unless you're his fish dinner in which case he's a big meanie).

THE DUCK FAMILY, OUR FIRST

ON JULY 3RD A MOMMA DUCK BROUGHT HER SIX BABIES TO P2, THIS IS THEIR STORY

We could barely believe our eyes, a mother duck and six tiny baby ducks landed on our large pond and took up residence the day before the loudest noises of the year, the 4th of July. We wondered if the duck family would stay or move on as all the others have, they stayed.

July 5th, Duck Family photos

Baby Ducks Playing

Anna Flapping Like Crazy

"I need to dry off my wings so I can fly home!"  Anna is very animated tonight!

Mottled Duck Family Bath Time 7-18-18

Duck Family "Boating"

Awwwwww!

Roll Tite Shutter Installation Complete! JULY 13 2018

The Roll Title "roll down" shutter installation is complete as of yesterday, exactly nine weeks after initiation of the order.  Amazing!

One Week Old Baby Ducks

The Florida Mottled baby ducks are growing up - here's a shot of them swimming and darting around this morning. They are getting fat on good American corn and delicious pond dabble treats :)

Florida Cooter Turtle Visited Today

We love visits from the local wildlife - today a Florida Cooter (like the one below) crossed in front of the pond...  he crawled across the grass and dove in the pond.

Picture above from Wikipedia "Coastal Plain Cooter"

Huey with Devil Horns

Huey, our Great Blue Heron, doesn't like raccoons near him when he's fishing at night.  This was a lucky catch, to grab this video of him yelling at and attacking a mama raccoon while it was still daylight.  We hear the "yell" of the wild Huey every evening as he polices the pond.  Scary! :)

Mom and Baby Ducklings

Mama Florida Mottled Duck has had her crew here for three days, and we've been enjoying the magical guests while they're here.  They stayed through the fireworks show, which is a surprise, but I guess our pond was relatively safe compared to the rest of the city!

The six ducklings are so amazing to watch, swimming in formation or clustered together playing and eating.  Amazing closeup photos are coming, but here's a snack time video to start.

Wild Weather

We broke an all time high temperature record today (for our weather station which is about 2 years old).

An hour ago we hit 114 degrees F as a high temperature; now, after 45 minutes of rain, it's 75 degrees outside.

In 45 minutes, we got over 2 inches of rain.

I love the afternoon thunder and lightning storms!

PERFECT JUNE WEATHER

Last year we had drought most of the summer, it was horrible, we were struggling to keep everything watered.

I worked all this past winter beefing up our irrigation system for this years possible "dry" summer but so far it's been a text book Florida summer month of June, with rain showers almost every afternoon.

Our plants never looked happier.

Since removing 500 fish from our large pond we've had no more oxygen problems and no more fish gathering at the surface of the water, catastrophe has been resolved.

To date we've only seen four total dead fish as a result of all the craziness. That is pretty incredible considering we moved and touched around 500 of them. :D

MOVING FISH!

Rain storms a few days ago left us with some weird thermal inversions in our big pond that caused the water to have a drop in O2 level, this made it very difficult for our panfish to breathe.

Hundreds of fish were laying at the surface of the water, gasping for air. In desperation we rigged up two oscillating sprinklers and ran them 24/7 to add some air back into the water.

TODAY, MONDAY JUNE 25 2018

Our very good friends Jason Werle and Steve Dolbow came over first thing Monday morning, Jason brought his cast-net, in short order we captured 250 tilapia, put them in Home Depot buckets and transferred them to our outer pond as their new home. No fish gave up their lives.

In addition our neighbor David came over with some 55 gallon trash cans, we gave him another 200+ fish for his pond. Tilapia love to eat algae and David was in the market for some of these fish because he had an algae bloom starting. The fish we gave him will take care of that algae in short order, they love it as a food source.

NOW WE WAIT

Was it enough to pull out almost 500 fish from the big pond? Will this help the O2 level for the remaining fish?

Time will tell.

Thank you to everyone for their help with this move. Because all present love the fish we did not lose a single life in the process of moving them.

Baby Dennis's are Here!

Today we spotted two baby Dennis' (actually, baby Heroes) visiting the pond, which means they fledged and left the nest.

To be specific, they are juvenile tri-colored Heron, and they are VERY white with delightful light green legs.

At first, Hero (our regular adult tri-colored Heron) said "Hailll Nooooo" and chased them away repeatedly.  Now, he's given up and is just grooming next to them, accepting the fact that they're going to spend the day here with him.  Hero, there are plenty of fish here, relax.....

The Southgate Seabreeze Bamboo Wall is Born!

Last week, I got very ambitious and, in spite of the heat and humidity, decided it was time to start to grow the south bamboo forest.  We had the holes dug and ready to go so it was time to either 1) buy 15 3 gallon bamboo pots, or 2) do some digging in the current Seabreeze bamboo from 2016 and pull out some nice clumps.

I've been very very anxious to do a "proof of concept" and pull out some very healthy clumps from the Seabreeze wall.  When we planted those 3 gallon Seabreeze bamboo plants, we placed them right next to each other rather than leaving 1 foot or 2 feet between them.... which means, there was PLENTY of bamboo to share.  I knew if I just picked a nice spot and began digging, I could pull out enough to populate the south gate with very little impact to the existing nice fluffy Seabreeze wall.

It took probably 6 hours total of digging, pulling, and sawing with the Makita reciprocating saw (bamboo rhizomes are a healthy bunch!)...  but I did it!  Here's the first pictures of the new Southgate Seabreeze wall.

(add pictures soon!)

BAJA 200 MINI BIKE, POST CLUTCH REPLACEMENT

It was easier than I thought it would be, our first Baja 200 mini bike has now received a full clutch replacement with an OEM part from Amazon. It has the same pathetic "grab" as the original but it's working and should last through Paul's vacation visit.

BIG ASS FAN

48" BLADES X 19,200 CFM, NOW THAT IS A BIG ASS FAN!

They Call Me The Breeze!

W I L S O N N N n n n n . . . . ......

Great Hair!

Huey the Heron Attacks Racon!

Brand New Huey
He likes us, here he is watching us, sitting on his elbows, chillaxin by the pond

AND THEN THERE WERE EIGHT! EIGHT CHINESE CLONE ENGINES!

OUR LATEST CHINESE HONDA CLONE ENGINE, PREDATOR 2" WATER PUMP

Big green hose is intake, red hose is output

Our eighth Honda clone engine came attached to a 2" semi trash water pump from Harbor Freight. I'm not a fan of Harbor Freight tools but their Predator brand engines from China have been very high quality and easy to start. This influenced my decision to buy this pump a lot, if these engines were hard to start I would not have bought this many of them. This new one literally started on the first pull of the rope, amazing.

I wire tied a piece of plywood so it sits over the engine to protect from sun and rain

We could not acquire enough of the 2" red output hose so I bought 2" PVC pipe at Home Depot and glued together the new drain pipe.

At first we just pumped water towards the drain but quickly created a swamp

Overall I like the 2" pvc pipe much better than the flexible hose which can flip around and be pretty unruly due to the extreme pressure this little pump can deliver.

The swamp, in process

The pump in action viewed from the house.

Look at the arc on that water output, don't get in front of it LOL

As the pump ran it seemed to pump better and better.

100 feet of 2" PVC

The 2" pvc pipe from Home Depot got excess water all the way over to the drain that feeds the canal.

The output from this pump is pretty amazing, that's a 2" column of water that will arc 12-feet into the air.

The pump spec's say it pumps 158 gallons per minute.

At 150 gallons per minute we're talking 9000 gallons per hour. We ran the pump for 4.5 hours, it runs 1 hour and 10 minutes on a full tank of gas. We estimate that we pumped 40,000 gallons out of our big pond, it lowered the pond about 2" total. Wow, that pond holds A LOT!