A New Angle To My Animal Sketches

At my grandmother's I realised how difficult it was to sketch live wildlife, with it constantly moving. It was much harder than I thought. I decided that rather than sketching on site, if I could identify the animal than I could sketch it using pictures off the internet. My observation notes I could write when I saw the animal. It would let me see more animals, and would save more time. I would only be allowed to record a animal however only if I saw it.

Causes and Remedies

Here is a rough sketch of my grandmother's property.

So what really caused the disaster and how do we remedy it?
Here are the notes from my sketch book. They're only ideas, they might not work.
Causes:

• Grass Clippings, falling plant debris, feces, and dead matter.
• Lots of Nutrients 
• Aquifer (main supplier of water to pond) is dead. This causes less water
• Too many water plants
• Too warm (winter wasn't cold enough to kill algae.

Remedies

• Desludge Pond - NO  Too expensive
• Stop Cutting Grass Near Pond- YES 
• Pick Up Grass Clippings - NO Too hard or Too expensive (lawn mowers charge more to pick up)
• Riparian Zone (natural barrier of mainly vegetation which blocks bad runoff. Also will take nutrients)- YES  Might Spread Though. Find Non- Spreading Plants.
• Algae Eating Fish- MAYBE Can get too big and you need to take them out. Also you need a license.
• Nutrient Eating Plants Near Where Septic Water Comes Out- YES
• Fountain in Middle of Pond (Aeration is a way to get DO and will disrupt algae)- MAYBE Expensive, Electricity, and Do you need to Clean it out?
• Sprays and Such Methods- MAYBE Might kill beneficial plants and animals. Not natural. If natural use.
• Dig Back Small Outlet- MAYBE May lower pond levels but would get rid of nutrients and algae. Maybe if dig it so it loops around but goes through Riparian Zone again.

Before I had the idea of a Riparian Zone, I had come up with all these ideas from computers that would be expensive, so it seemed like we could do nothing. I had felt bad and said that my first job leading a restoration project and I had failed. My grandmother said I hadn't. Some things you just can't save, but  you can help them. So even if you can't save something in your neighborhood, or where you live, you can slow it down. You might not be able to stop the rain forest from being cut down, but who knows? Even if you can't, you can launch a campaign. Even if you don't have lots of time use some of your free time to do something, because if you don't sooner or later you'll have to. We'll all have to. So why not start now. The Earth still has everything we need to live, even if it's not a super comfortable life. We should keep it that way.

My grandmother said one time the pond was in this same state and had oil on the surface. She said it wasn't as bad as the current situation but she said, when the pond seemed to be gone, it just came back. She says she feels that the spring is gone this time, but I don't know. I'll guess I'll just see.

The Problem With Algae

When I saw what had happened to the pond I was aghast. My aunt was trying some things like putting in barley straw, but that seemed to have made it worse. Sadly, she also put in chemicals which I believe made it worse and better. Let me tell you a little about algae. Algae can be caused by huge amounts of nutrients in the water. These nutrients are made by grass cuttings, leaves, pretty much any decaying plant or animal matter, including feces. Algae is very bad for a pond besides being an eyesore. A little bit is good, for it provides shelter for animals, and some food. But excessive amounts is bad. Firstly it blocks sunlight from reaching plants and animals below so the temperature lowers. It also does not let air touch the water which is the major reason oxygen is in water. Though algae produces oxygen thru photosynthesis it takes oxygen at night. This is called respiration and depletes the water substantially of DO (dissolved oxygen. These two problems kill off the life. Plus, on the bottom of deep parts of the ocean are sludge and fish need special adaptations so that they don't sink in the mud. Is this a problem then for the fish in the pond? Maybe. So I was sure that it was a nutrient problem, but when I tested for nitrates it came out 0! What? Some explanations might be that I got this kit last December from my sister and it might be old. Also I never checked for phosphorous which is a lead cause in algae too. (Never had phosphate test strip). I don't really know.

The Disaster

To begin with, just to let you know, this is no small pond. This is a large 20 foot deep pond.
For as long as I can remember my grandmother's pond has been covered with algae, the thick slimy type. Though there was lots of it, the bottom of the pond, or at least the water around the outlet had been rocky. The other surrounding parts and bank had a marshy plant like lesser celandine, just as a marsh plant, and probably not invasive though it might be. It also didn't have flowers. I didn't take this picture.

http://www.inff.ie/index.php?do=photos&gId=19

When we were small we called this plant duck weed and it was only till recently I found out duck weed is a algae particle, microscopic. Oops. Anyway, it wasn't a major problem, because the algae died off in the winter, and it was fun to clean the algae coming towards the outlet. My cousin, sister, and I spent hours down there doing just that.

Then the disaster came. Over the past years the pond became worse. Now the level has sunk a few feet down, giving way to a marshy ground, with that marsh plant. My sister and I were walking on this marshy ground to see the muskrat burrow, when my sister's foot actually went through the ground! Because of this lowering water level, the outlet now lies empty with all the rocks gone and grass in it's place.

That's not the worst part. The algae is now in the middle, with duckweed, (the particles) near the edges. There are hundreds of frogs, which live near the edges and all jump into the water to escape you (we caught a few). And the bottom, oh the bottom is covered in a black sludge, with black leaves, grass, and mud. Even near the outlet now. It is nasty. The pond sadly looks dead. But I'm not going to give up trying to save it. This was my next project.

The Problem At My Grandmother's House

My grandmother lives in a sort of rural area, filled with forests, rivers, ponds, and animals. This was a perfect place to do my research. Though I didn't manage to put all these animals in my sketchbook, I saw them: Heron, Muskrat, Groundhog, Frogs (tadpoles and adults), Garter Snake, 2 fawns, 1 doe, and plenty of roadkill. It's very sad but my aunt says that she suspects some people of actually driving and trying to hit these animals on the side of the road. Why are some humans so cruel? Why do we inflict unnecessary pain? It just doesn't make sense. Once we rid ourselves of this type of cruelness and juvenile behavior, we're well on the way to a better planet. Anyway back to the point. My grandmother has a house surrounded on I believe two sides by a thin amount of trees which then become civilization. It used to only be 1 side but then a house was being built. On the other two sides there is still lots of wood, though my grandmother doesn't own it. The bad news is, the woods are being turned into more houses. How much longer until the forest is gone. That's another problem, how long until rural, isn't rural. My grandmother owns a large expanse of grassy land with a large pond at the bottom. A small outlet near the bottom used to carry water into the trees until the disaster.

Coming up next week

Hey, I am posting from my grandmother's place up in Pittsburgh. This place is a wildlife haven with it's lake and forest, so I won't be able to blog this week. But coming up next week be prepared for a story about my adventures here including trying to salvage a pond. This is the BLOMer signing out.