Homework.

7-31-13 VERMONT: The last few days have felt like what Vermont used to feel like all summer. We need jackets in the evening and had a small fire last night. And it hasn’t rained for about three days. There was two inches in the rain gauge when we got back here after three days in NJ.

The pond is greenish from algae, but has no floating, lumpy stuff. I started siphoning water off the bottom of the pond. I dropped a mushroom anchor into the pond with a hose wired to it and attached the anchor line to a float so I can recover the set up. I filled three more hoses, one by one, and connected them in sequence leading them over the dam to the drainage brook. The water coming out of the hose is much murkier than the surface water. The surface water turns over a lot with all the rain we’ve had.

The water drains at 3.5 gal./ 3 min. That’s 7 gal., or ~ I cu. ft./ 6min, or 10 cu. ft./ hr., or 240 cu. ft./ day, or 7,200 cu. ft./ month. The pond is one-quarter acre, or about 11,000 sq. ft. and averages, perhaps, 5 ft. deep for 55,000 cu. ft. If I continue the draining for 3 or 4 months, that would be about half the pond capacity. But, of course, every new gallon mixes with the old water so noticeable change will take a while to occur.

Yesterday and today I pulled out a rotting post from the deck railing and replaced it with a 6 x 6 pressure treated new post and reattached the gate and rails. This afternoon I started replacing rotted skirt board trim, the white trim boards under the cedar clapboard siding on the house. I’m using Azek trim boards. That’s a white, non-wood, non-rotting, PVC material that handles like wood. Unfortunately, one of the old boards I pulled off revealed a rotted sill that I will need to replace before the trim can be replaced.

New blooms: soapwort.


Hostapalozza.

Lily, real lily, and very aromatic.