I don't think that it's ever going to rain again. The next few days are going to be hotter than ever. I think that I'll go back to bed and stay there until football season starts.

It rained here yesterday. If you blinked you missed it though. It's rough out there. What's this 3 weeks with indexes over 100 with little to no rain? I haven't mowed in almost a month.

I've only mowed 3xs all year.. Ponds down almost 3'

Actually guys, I'm really hating this for you. We tend to accept the fact that summer's are brutal here, but it seems really strange to see this other places farther North.

As I've stated before, the whole concept of pond management my be changed if the weather pattern doesn't break. Existing recommended watershed numbers may not be adequate in the future.

Future dirt work for me will be down, not around. We usually get a tremendous amount of rain in the early Spring, and I may have to hold that water for the entire summer. I've already raised my drain a foot, and may dig out the majority of my 2-5' water to hold water longer. I've just about quit spraying emergent weeds, and am just mowing them down. They're 5' up the bank right now.

I'm down 3' too, and I've been pumping 25 gpm into the pond since mid May. Other ponds around here are down 5'-6'. We had some rain last night and this morning, but not near enough to compensate for the drought.

I've mowed twice, but only cut grass once. The other time was just mowing weeds. My grass is dead for the year, it's brown and crunchy.

The only weeds that are growning in my pond now is APW and some Narrow leaf Pondweed. When (and if) the water levels come up, the Narrow leaf will die out because it won't get sunlight.

Around here, in the areas that have sandy soil, we have to manage ponds for minimum size. Ponds here can shrink by 50% from Spring to Fall. I'm really happy that I didn't go along with the suggested depth when renovating the pond. I dug it another 10' past that, and I think that is why I have been able to hold fish during the drought without massive problems.

When your livelihood depends on repairing the equipment that other folks are using to mow their grass, this kind of year means you're in trouble. I had a salesman in today who informed me that the closest shop to me had just laid off two more employees, telling them not to expect to come back before March, 2013. Others have dropped down to 4-day workweeks.

In this business you expect to do nothing from Nov-Feb, so you plan accordingly and hope for a busy summer. Unfortunately, that never materialized this year. Going to be a challenging off season.

AND my ponds are down too..........

Buddy of mine with a part time landscaping business has easily had half his customers go to a two week schedule.

What business he's lost in mowing, he's tripled in dead tree work. Oaks and Bradford Pears are dying around here daily. Crepe Myrtles and grasshoppers are the only thing around here happy right now.

Most of the ponds around here that I've seen aren't in too bad of shape. We had a big rain on June 23rd, that filled a lot of them up. I do have one new little pond on my yard that is still in its saturating the ground stage. I made the mistake of throwing 100 perch and some fatheads in it back in May and I've been keeping them alive with water from a garden hose. I may have to move them to a cage in my big pond soon.

Sorry guys, doesn't sound too promising. I hope things turn around for you soon. Here's an update from HUDLAND:



My ponds are all topped off and flowing due to these new springs that sprung out of nowhere.
Nice planktonic algae bloom going - can see the zooplankton starting to really kick in...beautiful green blue hue visibility about 32".
My BG somehow began growing like crazy - most fish are plump and at least 8".
The SMB are topping out around 19-20", and the HSB are approaching 28"
HBC aren't spawning, at all, and average 18"
YP are all a minimum of 14"+ including the males!
RES average 12"+ and WE are pushing 5# even the 8" fish stocked last Fall
GSH are only providing a huge boost in fish growth and have quit being pellet hogs
Oh, and my BH developed some kind of virus and all died, washed to shore, and were eaten by raccoons, who then also all died and quit eating my pheasants and quail.

My pondweed grows exactly 24" from shore, but parts whenever I decide to toss a jig and allows me a nice path through it

My pond contractor came by two weeks ago and built a new pond, for free.

Out of an act of kindness, my acreage neighbors have decided to pay my Aqua Max and electricity bills even though I do not allow fishing on my ponds.

The Swedish Bikini Team needed a rustic place for a shoot and will be camping at the farm for the next month.

I regrew a lot of hair last night and can apparently become invisible at will...

and fly.

Don't ask me....IT ALL DEPENDS!

Somebody needs to loosen his sombrero.

I think its the heat. LOL!

OK, moderators, do your thing. I just had to answer that.

Done.

TJ, can you swing by after work and dip your big toe in my pond? I need some of your karma.

Bullhead, just borrow TJ's overly tight sombrero for a few hours and spend the afternoon working outside in this heat, by this evening your pond will be perfect too.

I'd be happy with an autographed picture of TJ. I plan to hold it over my head, facing the sky. Surely, his smiling countenance will be enough to induce precipitation.....

Ah...in the face of adversity one can get angry/frustrated, cry/whine, or laugh their arse off. I choose the latter as there's typically far less clean up afterwards.

For the record, we're all suffering here in NE, too. My 50 GPM well is not even keeping up with evap - levels slowing sinking daily. Those electric bills are mounting, and you know, thought of a fish kill in 94 surface temp water is always lingering.

Lightning strike - yes. Rain - IT ALL DEPENDS!

Goodness, Omaha! Four minutes! Why couldn't you at least wait until tomorrow to "do your thing"? After all, some comments BEG for a response.

TJ lives in a magical place!

It took me four minutes? Might as well clean out my desk.

Did a rant go bad yesterday also?

TJ, how many surface acres is that 50 gpm well feeding?

It seems like we just can't catch a break with the rain here either. Watch it on the map and it seems to go all around.

Gotten to the point where everyone is hoping for rain.

My ponds are down too. As an example, I walked over to my island today without even getting any private parts wet.

Wanna buy a bridge?

+1

Well said,

Well I am glad we got the rain but I was looking forward to renting an excavator next weekend to clean the edge of the pond and dig the hole at one end. I wont complain though. I could always pump water out I guess. LOL

In the last three months I doubt I have had an inch of rain. Yesterday there were pop up showers and we just happened to be in the path of one and got 1.1 inch while the last I saw Indianapolis had only .04. We were very lucky but of course that doesn't really do anything about the drought. Dog Dolly and I went to the pond and set in the rain.

Yesterday was the most rain we have had in many weeks. Ended up with a whopping 2/10 of an inch.......

I guess by editing my post your telling me my sense of humor kidding a fellow PB member is not welcome,"LIGHTEN-UP FRANCIS"

I don't see what was edited, AP, but saw that the post indicated it had been. In any event, congrats on hitting 3000 posts! I'm right behind you!

I didn't see it either, Todd.
We should have a place were we can go see and enjoy all of the moderated threads...

It wouldn't take a whole lot of space with this crowd.

If it was ok to stay on here then it would not need to be moderated.

In this thread it was all references to the political junk. IIRC in your case AP it was CB1s quote not your post.

Keep in mind our instructions are if its much troubled to edit several such posts the just delete the whole thread.

We have had .31 inches of rain since Memorial day in my part of Wisconsin. Needless to say it isn't pretty. Pastures are dead, along with the corn, haven't mowed the lawn in two months. It was a great year to build a new pond, plenty of time to place structure, etc. but all it is a dust bowl for time being.

Matt:

They are pulling boats from some of the lakes around here. The small bays and coves that are in front of peoples houses are getting too shallow for them to drive the boats in and out of. So, many decided to get the boats out while they still could.

I do apologize to the forum members and to the moderators for my violation of the rules, but I can't apologize for challenging a political statement that was remaining unedited.

101 here at noon today.

I hear you Dudley and that is the exact reason to keep all politics off the forum. There are very good people (friends) here who have very different political leanings of all types. Bob does not want his PB friends to have to deal with politics here as the result will be people leaving (both those arguing and everyone else who has to endure the discourse) in disgust. Please guys - no more politics.