There seemed to be enough open water to start the pond pump today, so I did. Unfortunately, the water smelled of decay, and as the ice melted I saw two dead frogs. This does not bode well for the fish. Unfortunately we really don’t know what we might have done wrong. Too many dead leaves? It was a much colder winter than last year — we hit 25 below (F, -32 C) three or four times, but the snow was deep so we hoped all would be well.
If the fish are indeed dead, we’ll try a heater next year. It seems both ungreen and like cheating, but then again there is no flow through the pond so perhaps that covers the cheating part.
I put 10 gallons of wood ash on the part of the lawn I didn’t get to in December before the snow got too deep, and I got back out to the to-be-cut pile and went through a tank of gas before it started to rain. We now have plenty of wood for the spring. I need to finish the rest tomorrow because it’s on the lawn and needs to be off before green-up.
The currently in use compost pile ( the one that was still 80F in February) seems to have finally been put out by the last cold snap, (it shows 40F) but at least it’s thawed. the others are still frozen. We’ll be building another set of bins out in the new veggie garden as soon as the snow melts. I want at least one empty bin in the old set to get us through next winter. I was hoping to start staking the new garden this weekend, but the snow was still too deep for pleasant walking today. Well, ars longa and all that. There’s more firewood, and work inside I havent’t finished.