Waterfall Returns.

 7-26-21 VERMONT: Blanca is fitting right in. She is now invisible fence trained and is allowed out on her own and with the other dogs. The intra-dog pack dynamics are still in flux. She and Bally and I were out in the pasture this morning, and they were jumping around and playing.

All the rain, we had another 0.8 inches, has raised the level of the new pond to the top of the waterfall. The springs I exposed are still flowing and the waterfall is splashing away. 

When the new water reached the old pond, flowing down the brook between the ponds, it started a migration of crayfish from the older pond up the brook and up the waterfall and into the new pond. There were one or two per minute for more than an hour. They climbed the rocks of the waterfall or used the vegetation to climb. They could be out of the water exposed to air for several minutes. It must have been the taste or smell of the new water that drew them. 

The banks of the new pond were exposed as the water level dropped during the dry weeks of the early summer. As more of the banks were exposed, vegetation, grasses, ferns and all, moved down the bank. When the pond filled, all that vegetation was submerged. I’m guessing that’s what the crayfish smelled. Since they have been in the new pond, a lot of the vegetation has disappeared, the crayfish army has eaten it. 

I had to re-work the new lupin bed. The rain and watering I did washed out a lot of the sand. I made a rock barrier on the low side and dug out around the upper sides to make the bed bigger and added more sand. It looks better and the sand, so far, stays in place. I also planted a bunch of lupin seeds in the expanded areas. 

I also transplanted some ferns in the area with the new springs into the dirt piles that I dug out. I like ferns behind the new pond, but they grow all over the gardens. An occasional fern in a flower bed seems OK, but they take over as soon as you turn your back. I pull them out of the beds and move them or chuck them if they don’t come out with a rootball. 

New blooms: Queen Anne’s lace, goldenrod, gooseneck loosestrife, aster.  

Blanca explores the yard and pasture. Now she's off leash.

Kaley says the water tastes the same to me.

Two fritillary butterflies on a bee balm. They are different types. The one in back has more black markings on the fore wing.

A crayfish doing a wall climb. It's using that stem in its front claw as an aid.

Several crayfish climbing the waterfall.

Crayfish on top and getting to the new pond.

The new brook and waterfall.