Mitte Oktober

My little troupe of ducks spend nearly all their time below the frog pond near our house these days, when their first sortie of the morning used to be to the big duck pond. Even until quite recently they would spend most of their days lying on the grass on this side, from where I took the photo this morning:

As you can see the level of the water has sunk a lot more since I last posted pictures of the pond. Two of the big blue tubs fell over sometime in August, and I can still find no hole along the sides.  I now think that there must be a tear at the bottom and will leave the pond to drain without using the pump.

          This is Captain and Anke's abandoned hut.


I've been taking photos of the water level going down since 18th March when the duck pond was full [2 pics above badly joined together] in the hope of detecting a hole that I could mend with a patch like in the two photos below.  31st May [left] and 21st June [right]

As I was standing on the edge taking these two pictures above on 4th July I could hear a rustling at my feet, UNDER the pond lining.  Some little creature, whether mouse, mole or rat, was moving backwards and forwards in the area I've marked with dashes, I could see a lump moving under the liner - but never saw the little beastie itself.

While taking photos of the big pond early this morning I suddenly saw that the recent storms had totally flattened our bean poles to the ground:

Our new neighbour has now rendered the outside of the house and the windows are in.