Below is my view this morning. As you can tell, I’m a little late with your newsletter this month. I’d like to blame it on the weather but that isn’t true. I’ve just been scatter-brained and doing other things. We have about four inches of that white stuff that fell overnight. Traffic was a little slow this morning but most of us made it.

What does the snow do to your pond? Really, not much. The fish are already pretty much dormant and down at or near the bottom, your plants have all died, at least the ones that are going to, your bacteria colony is asleep if your wa-ter temps are below 45 degrees (which they probably are. I’d go out and check the thermometer but it’s too cold) and your waterfalls may be close to freezing. None of the ponds in in our yard are fro-zen over and all pond waterfalls are still running, I did check those. The biggest concern we have is a waterfall freezing over and creating an ice dam that allows water to run off the side instead of under the ice to the pond.

Ah yes you say, but what about the dreaded algae? I’ve had a few calls from people complaining about their string algae growing so much. My recommendation is to leave it alone. I believe it is a sign of a buildup of nutrient in the water caused by increased fish activity due to the warm days we’ve been having and is necessary to keep the water quality from going toxic. It will go away as the temps drop or early in the Spring.

We will be closed February 20th and the morning of the 21st for training. It is time for the annual Water Garden Expo for professional water shapers presented by Pondliner.com. Three days of training, a trade show, a lot of networking and a look at the winners of the Pond Trade magazine 2019 Artisans of the Year. We’ll have more than 200 people from all over the U.S. gather here for some training Wednesday the 19th then move to the Heart of Oklahoma Exposition Center for Thursday and Friday. I wish you all could come but it is only for trade professionals.

Always be humble and kind

~~~Mike