{"id":37212,"date":"2026-06-17T05:00:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T09:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=37212"},"modified":"2026-06-16T23:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:13:14","slug":"pond-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/17\/pond-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Pond Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

A beautiful early summer day with low humidity, temperatures in the high seventies, plenty of sun and a light breeze; actually paradisical.\u00a0 Camera Girl is watching over the pond I built for her and has filled it with various water plants, gold fish, minnows, frogs and snakes from the surrounding environs and the various \u201cpond supply stores\u201d that traffic in such things.\u00a0 For a while she was very uneasy because she had not seen any of the fish for a whole week and assumed that the local raccoons had fished them out overnight.\u00a0 But the real reason she couldn\u2019t see them was because they were hiding in the murky depths of the pond.\u00a0 And they were doing that because they\u2019re stupid fish.\u00a0 But once she started feeding them at a regular hour, they would arrive en masse to gorge on the putrid pellets that the pet store assured us was nectar and ambrosia for these same piscine recluses.<\/p>\n

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But interestingly the frogs really are AWOL.\u00a0 I attribute this to the warmer weather we\u2019ve had for the last week or two.\u00a0 My pond must be several degrees warmer than the water in the swamp and they probably enjoy that temperature at this time of year.\u00a0 But I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll come and go once they start finding insects and other invertebrates taking up residence in the new watering hole.<\/p>\n

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SONY DSC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As for the snakes, I found an immature northern water snake and an immature Eastern garter snake around the yard and chucked them in the water last week.\u00a0 The water snake stuck around for a couple of days but the garter left after an hour or so.\u00a0 They\u2019ll also come and go as prey species appear.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping the water snake population discovers this pond and makes it a permanent part of their range because they can prey on the gold fish and keep the numbers stable.\u00a0 Plus, they\u2019re fun to see around a pond.\u00a0 They\u2019re nasty creatures to handle.\u00a0 They love to bite anyone careless enough to leave flesh within range of their jaws and they also defecate on anyone holding them.\u00a0 And since fish is the main part of their diet this fluid is extremely offensive smelling.\u00a0 So, they\u2019re much better as wild inhabitants of the pond than as pets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The turkeys wandered through the yard again last week and stopped by the pond for a drink.\u00a0 Although I couldn\u2019t imagine drinking that water.\u00a0 Then again, I couldn\u2019t imagine drinking the water in the swamp but all of the wildlife in this area; bears, coyotes, foxes, otters, weasels, beavers, raccoons, opossums and birds of all kinds drink nothing else and seem to survive unscathed.\u00a0 But despite this I still feel they\u2019d easily learn to prefer cold seltzer as I do.\u00a0 But I guess it takes all kinds.<\/p>\n

Currently the only critter I haven\u2019t managed to find and fling in the puddle is the Eastern red-spotted newt.\u00a0 I usually see this around the yard but none have come my way since I built the pond so it\u2019ll have to wait until chance accommodates my plan.\u00a0 Of course, the goldfish may not play nice with the newts when the former start achieving size.\u00a0 I could see the little fellows getting inhaled by these fancy carp.\u00a0 But as Camera Girl always says, \u201cEverybody\u2019s gotta eat.\u201d\u00a0 But what about Hannibal Lecter?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A beautiful early summer day with low humidity, temperatures in the high seventies, plenty of sun and a light breeze; actually paradisical.\u00a0 Camera Girl is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3366,1263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous"],"yoast_head":"\nPond Life - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/17\/pond-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pond Life - 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