Another Pond Update!

I've complained most of the summer that my pond was losing water and the adjoining hillside was mostly a wet quagmire. Ben knew I was unhappy about the pond, and he came up with a solution. On Monday, work began to find more water to go into my pond. Ben's helper, Shawn, did some preliminary work on Monday, moving the beautiful stone wall he'd built a little over a year ago when they did the original pond. The plan was to lay pipe from a smaller auxiliary catch pond, underground to empty into the big pond. Ben came this morning and with two machines working, they quickly dug a drainage trench along the upper side of the hill down to the new auxiliary pond (above) where it would then flow into the main pond to help keep it full. This afternoon, another trench was dug and lined with crushed rock and drainage pipe that should take care of any excess water that still flows off the hillside, and direct it into the pond (picture on left). I think they are pretty well finished up, but Ben said he'll be back tomorrow to check to see if everything is working properly. He thinks the auxiliary pond should fill up overnight and begin to feed into the main pond. He said there is a lot of water up above. It will all still eventually end up where it always has, except not washing out the bank of my pond and my back lawn. And now I have TWO ponds!

Another consequence of that backyard wetness is probably the reason the floor in my garage cracked and dropped about six inches over time. The sidewalls are also cracked and need to be replaced, so I had Larry Rossi take a look at that and he will plan fix it next spring/summer. Once that is done, this place should be pretty dry and secure for a few more decades.

 I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween. There didn't seem to be much going on along this side of the pond - perhaps on the West Danville side? I haven't heard of any mischief or even Trick-or-Treaters calling. I'm not surprised, it's pretty scary at night around here, and really, really dark! No streetlights to help goblins find their way. And now (see pictures below) we have solid evidence of wildlife in the darkness! I'm happy to stay inside, come dark.

I have had a game camera set up most of the summer - and   the only game I captured on film was a fox. I changed the position a few weeks ago and got this shot of a sneaky skunk  and today when I checked, I was delighted to find this image of a black bear! Things that prowl about in the night are pretty scary. That skunk was responsible for turning on my motion-detector light several nights this summer. I suspected it was a skunk, and now I know for sure. The bear may have set off a light - but perhaps he wasn't close enough to the house. I had moved the camera to a different spot. It looks like a big, well-fed creature, and I don't see any cubs, so I suspect it might be a male. I wouldn't want to meet him, in the daylight or dark!

We will be setting our clocks back one hour on Saturday night; well, it actually is official at 1 a.m. Sunday, but most people will set clocks and watches back Saturday night to get that extra hour of sleep. There is a bill, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021, that would make Daylight Saving Time (DST) standard throughout the nation. The problem apparently is that some states want to stick with Daylight Saving Time (DST) and instead, drop Standard Time (ST). Hawaii, most of Arizona, plus overseas territories such as American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the I.S. Virgin Islands, do not observe DST. The rest of the nation is mostly divided about the whole thing.

Daylight Saving Time began in the spring of 1918, ostensibly a fuel-saving effort during WWI.  I checked numerous websites on the subject, and one report was that a representative poll was taken and found that only 25% of Americans don't mind switching from times twice a year; 43% said they would prefer ST, while 32% preferred DST. The Sunshine Protection Act passed the Senate last March; however the House has not approved the bill. If approved, it would be effective on November 5, 2023. Members of the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine state that research of biological rhythms and sleep medicine shows that Standard Time aligns better with our internal clocks and therefore people would function better if Standard Time were adopted year around. 

Either way, I think changing our clocks is probably unnecessary. I have no opinion about which should become the standard we all live by for 12 months, but I do think humans are better at adapting than some people give us credit for, and it wouldn't take long for everyone to adjust to whichever time was adopted. It would be nice not to have to "adapt" twice a year for no particularly good reason. We'll see what happens - or maybe once again, there will be no action taken. Meanwhile, don't forget to set your clocks back one hour before you turn in Saturday night! You wouldn't want to be an hour early for everything on Sunday!