Humpty Dumpty Falls

Barring lightening storms or nude ladies walking their dogs, I would have to say morning is my favorite time of the day.   I'm usually up before the sun, the birds, the neighbors and the paper boy (or what ever they call them now days).  It's quiet.  I'm rested. I have the whole day in front of me...

This morning was normal.  I read for a while.  Got the paper.  I read for a while. I opened the shades so I could see what the new day would bring.

As the sun chased away the shadows I noticed the who-who birdies.   They were lined up like soldiers on a cold morning, hunched down, facing the sun.  Worshiping Ra?  To me it looked like they were still sleepy and needed a strong cup of coffee. I put off filling the bird feeder so I wouldn't disturb these cold soldiers witnessing sunrise.

These who-who birdies are not the brightest bulbs on the tree.  Yep, a long driveway and a very small garage.  A bunny short of energized.  A few threads short of a sweater.  A few twists shy of a slinky.... But they sure are cute. 

So while the who-who birdies were burning their retinas I watched the circus begin, once again, as the rest of the crew started to arrive. I took seed to the demanding creatures.

I was trying to remember when I last saw our hero, Joe. I'm thinking it was this past Sunday. The longer we go without a sighting the more I lean toward Joe giving it up until spring.

Later this morning I got a little carried away with pond renovations. While the pond guru and I were redoing Joe's station a few days ago, I was start'n to feel like I could do what the guru was doing. No problem. So I took down, as in demolished, the waterfall from the bridge pond that feeds Joe's station. Wow, kinda drastic now that it's demolished and I'm here all alone needing to figure out how to put it back together.... we can call it the Humpty Dumpty Falls in the future.

The waterfall really needed to be reworked. That was quite evident once I started demolition. The mortar that was used had cracks in it. Some mortar was nothing more than dirty sand, the cement long ago washed away. Water leaked under the falls as well as around the falls. It is supposed to only go over the falls. There were even leaves that had wedged themselves into the cracks. Would you believe the leaks were not the biggest problem? The biggest problem was what would happen when we had a power failure. When the electricity stops so does the pump. Then the ponds, which are driven by gravity, flow downhill... on into the next into the next and so on. When the bridge pond, which is the biggest pond, leaks under, around and through the falls the lowest pond overfills. When this happens the water reaches the overflow and vanishes down the drain. Then when the electricity starts up the lowest pond, which is where the pump lives, water gets pumped to the highest pond... that is until the pump runs out of water because so much went down the overflow. Then the pump burns out. A new pump is over $400. Whew... that was wordy.

The pond is stagnant now. No pumping going on and it will be a few days before we are going again. Since Joe hasn't made an appearance I guess I won't have much to say about frogs in the frog blog. Suggestions?