Some of this and some of that...

Busy day today. It was supposed to be the "repair the fish pond day," but things got in the way. I had to do some bookkeeping. Then I had to call an insurance company regarding my dad's estate. The call didn't go through, so I had to send an email to the company. When I finally went outside to work on the pond, I thought I had better check the mole trap to see if I had caught my little friend who has been wreaking havoc in back yard.

I did, in fact score with the mole trap. That was a relief, since the count of mole hills had increased to 14. Having caught the mole, I felt confident in cleaning up all the mole hills he had created. By then I was on a roll with reclaiming the lawn. I mowed, fertilized and watered both front and back lawns. Well, by the time I finished all that stuff, it was time for lunch with Perry. Jill had gone next door to babysit, so I made a sandwich, switched on the tube (yes, we still have a tube, which is not to say that Jill and I haven't had long discussions about a large flat panel set), and sat down to see whodunit.

After lunch, Jill came home, and we went to the pond supply shop to get a vacuum cleaner-like gadget to pick up debris from the bottom of the pond. The gadget looks like a vacuum cleaner hose attached to a rigid section of telescoping pipe with a vacuum cleaner brush type attachment on the end. It hooks up to a garden hose, and the idea is that the water from the garden hose squirts out of a nozzle at high velocity, creating a venturi effect and causing water (and any nearby debris) to be drawn into the pipe and discharged through the vacuum cleaner hose onto the lawn.

You know those things in life that seem so right and turn out to be such a disappointment? Well, the "Muck Vac" is one of them. The concept is so good; the execution not so much. The directions say that the contraption requires 50 psi of water pressure, and I know that our water pressure is on the order of 65 psi. Nevertheless, the water pressure was inadequate to lift the pond water high enough in the tube for it to actually be expelled out the end of the exhaust hose.

Years ago, I constructed a gadget that works on the same principle. It uses water at high speed to produce a venturi suction, but instead of lifting the water out of the pond, it discharges at pond level into a nylon stocking, which acts as a filter. It works like a champ, but it adds a lot of water to the pond, and sometimes the stocking tears and spills it's contents back into the pond. So, I was hoping the Muck Vac would be the answer. Wrong! Tomorrow it goes back to the store. I'll get my $118 back and keep using my $10 homemade thingamajig.

I forgot to mention that we were expecting to host 9 for dinner this evening, so a portion the morning was given over, among other things, to dicing and marinating 6 or 8 pork chops for making teriyaki shish kebabs. After my battle with pond scum, I came in and assembled the kebabs. I can tell you, that is a lot of skewering!! In the end it was well worth the effort. The kebabs were fun to eat, and the company was non-pareil.