The Nature of the Yates property

We have a wonderful little piece of earth that we get to call our own. We've got a creek that runs between our property and our neighbors that flows into a pond...it used to be the local swimming hole many many decades ago, before it filled into be a little swampy on one end and probably about two or three feet deep at the other end. Not much for swimming, but the life that lives around the creek and pond is abundant.

In the 8 years we've lived here (yep...8 years at the end of this month), the creek and pond haven't always been full of life. There have been a year or two when the creek barely flowed and the pond actually dried up. In fact, there was the one year we went to bed with a pond and woke up without one! (the "plug" that was used to create the swimming hole finally rusted and fell off! The whole pond drained over night! I think we've got pictures of Brock and/or John (our next door neighbor) saving the hundreds upon thousands of tadpoles we had that year!)

In the past couple of years, probably the past two or three, Brock has been dumping 50-100 goldfish into the creek and pond. The idea was, if they took hold, the mosquito population would die off (yes, the one downside to the pond was the mosquito population was horrific if you got anywhere near the pond...and they pretty much surrounded the area enough that you ended up getting ate alive if you spend a little time outside after dark!) Last year we finally saw a school of goldfish that seem to be taking hold and living off what the pond and creek would supply. In fact, the fish got so big, we were just stunned...these aren't no $15 plus koi goldfish, these are little 10 cent feeder fish! We've got one about 12 inches long!!! It's pretty amazing.
Fish in the Pond
This year, over the winter, we started noticing that there were more than we thought in the pond. We gold ones and we got one or two that are more white than gold and a lot of black ones (they are the babies...goldfish are black/grey when they are born and turn gold as they get older - some of our bigger fish are a combo of gold and black...they are really pretty). Well, the dark ones are hard to see, unless they move around.

With the weather being so nice yesterday and today, we surveyed the pond and were seeing a lot of fish. Today, Leda and I saw HUNDREDS. And I ain't exaggerating. It appears that our fish have been VERY busy fish this winter, what with the trying to stay warm, and probably cuddling together, well, you know where that leads too! Yep, our fish have been having fish!

We figure there must have been about 30-40 fish at the end of last summer. Now, there are LOTS of little black fish that weren't there at the end of last summer!!!

I haven't seen any yet, it may be a little too early, but I am sure we will end up with lots of tadpoles and frogs. And the snapping turtle is probably hidden beneath the mud and guck at the bottom of the pond. That is if there's only one...we had two at one point! Don't like the snapping turtles (well, I don't....I saw one eat a baby duckling one year....Brock loves the turtles!)

And, we've snakes! Yep, I said snakes. I love snakes, as long as they don't attack me! ;-) Mostly they are garter snakes, but last summer I saw a big black snake hanging out near the creek. According to Brock, none are dangerous. Anyway, yesterday as we were hanging out by the creek, Brock and Duff when to go over the bridge and scared one away from the area of the bridge. The snake hung out in the creek while we were there. I took a picture...
Snake in the creek
Today, as Leda and I were making our rounds of the property, as we were on the McCarthey's side of the creek, we were about to cross the bridge when we saw this...
Snakes
I was stunned...there must be about 7 or 8 snakes in this pile!!

The McCarthey's have a swingset just up the hill from this bridge where we found, at the end of the summer, a nest of garter snakes living under the slide. The assumption is, these are those same snakes hanging out now near our bridge!

Leda and I backtracked around the pond back to our side of the creek and I took a few pictures of the snakes as they swam away from me...
Snakes
A few had already swam off...I'd say there are at least 3 or 4 in this picture.

We also have some ducks that frequent our pond in the mornings mostly. And not far from our house, at the reserviour, there are rumored to be 4 bald eagles nesting. We have geese in the area (thank god they don't want to live at our pond...they are messy...and mean!) We have a heron that sometimes comes and feeds on our fish (hopefully he will stay away or not eat all our fish!)

For an acre or two of land that we share with our neighbors, we have such an abundance of nature. Outside the creek and pond, we have a groundhog that hangs out once and awhile. We've got a cat that lives in the trailer park that comes over and hunts frogs...funny thing is, she doesn't eat them...she doesn't harm them at all. How do we know this? We caught the cat's owner one year returning the frogs that she would carry home to him to the pond! With nary a scratch on them, at that! Funny! We had rabbits, or we have them...we don't see them, but one year, one mother rabbit nested in our garden. Unfortunatly, the babies didn't make it because Duff probably scared the mother away and baby rabbits don't live without their mommy. It was sad, but another sign of nature sharing our home with us.

Then, there are the bane of Duff's existance...the squirrels! We have lots of squirrels that live on our property. In fact, we have known some of them since they were little babies! Duff is constantly chasing the squirrels out of HIS yard!

I love the spring time. As the days get warmer and the flowers start to poke through the ground, the life that we share our home with awakes from the long winter. It's uplifting! Even if we didn't really have that bad a winter...but when we do have a cold, long, and dark winter, it's really uplifting this time of year, when everything starts to wake up!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Underground

Second Opinions and Trusting the Process

So looking forward to a four day weekend!