The pond is filling up-but so is the basement!

The weather here is very trying.  Its 34 degrees here today and we had snow overnight that left a coating on the grass and car.  Thursday before the deluge it was 75 degrees.   We had about 2 inches of rain in a short time on top of saturated soil from heavy rains earlier in the week.  The ditch by the road was overflowing, which is a signal to us that our little dug out basement had water in it.  Sure enough when we lifted the hatch in the bathroom which leads to the dugout we saw lots of water.  We have pumped it out 3 times so far.    The far corner of our yard near the road is under water.  The grass is growing but we won’t be able to get a mower on that wet ground for a while.

At least the pond is really getting full.  On Thursday I got to sit by it for a few minutes before the storms started.  I saw one tiny fish and heard bullfrogs singing.  No signs of turtles yet which is odd, there were so many last year.  Two kingfishers were out there, flying around and scolding me.  I have seen one around the last couple years, but this is the first time I have seen two, hopefully it’s a mate and they will nest here.  My odd little duck is back also.  I still haven’t quite figured out what type of duck it is.  

The arrow shows where the pond edge was in the fall.

My own ducks are all sitting.  One is in my garden wagon in the barn, with a nest of down all around her.  I won’t be using that for a while.  If the eggs are good I should have some baby Muscovies hatching in about a week from the first duck that started sitting.  That’s about the time my new chicks are scheduled to arrive.  

Both of my Bourbon Red turkeys are sitting but I doubt they will hatch anything.  The dark turkey hen never sits this early.  But when she does sit she generally hatches and raises her babies.  She likes to nest out in the yard somewhere, generally in one of my garden beds.  Last year she started sitting in late May.  The dark tom turkey is beautiful right now, his colors are brilliant.  The older Red tom is looking scruffy just like last spring.  He is growing new feathers though and he’s gobbling like crazy just like the young tom.

All the wild birds are building nests.  The Red winged blackbirds are thick and noisy around here.  Doves are building nests in several trees.  Now if I could just get my inside canaries to successfully nest I’d be happy.  One hen laid but the eggs didn’t hatch.  One hen just plays around a bit with nest material and never gets serious.  Both males are singing furiously and I saw the young male mating with his hen, who is the unsuccessful nester.  I’m not sure the older male is actually mating with his hen, which may be why she isn’t too diligent in building a nest.

I have been trying to come up with a good solution to keeping the cats away from the bird feeders outside.  One in particular spends all her time underneath the feeders or the ramp nearby.  I think if the weather will just stay warm I may hook up a sprinkler I can turn on whenever I see her out there.  We only used half the bird feed we used last year-because the birds don’t come around or she has eaten them all. 

Our garden efforts are proceeding slowly.  Between the weather and our physical problems it seems like we are just poking along there.  But I have got a peach tree, strawberries, saskatoons and grapes planted.

One day it will be 80 degrees and we will suddenly have spring.  Ah, Michigan.