My Blog

I suppose that this is really a blog, though I hesitate to call it that. The real bloggers seem so much more interesting. I cover stuff which I find interesting, and I hope that you will too.

If you really want, you can get an RSS feed of Chateau Gladstone news here:

For more information about what I'm interested in, see the Ponding pages.

Topic: Pond   The hummingbird came back  10 Jun 2001

We saw the hummingbird for the first time this year. (I guess it is the Ruby Throated as that is the only one that is found in Massachusetts). I hope to get a decent photograph of it. I suppose that we ought to put out the hummingbird feeder now!


Topic: Pond   New camera position  5 Jun 2001

I realized that the camera was facing south -- i.e. into the sun. I moved it round to the other side of the pond so that the sun will normally be behind the camera. This should improve the image.

Right now it is not pointing in quite the right direction, but I'll fix that in the next few days. It certainly does seem to work better. You can see the stems of some of the water lily leaves and the leaves floating on the surface.


Topic: Pond   Frog hopped away  30 May 2001

I fear that the Leopard frog has hopped away. We haven't seen it for a few days. I think that it probably heard its friends calling from over the field, and went to join them.


Topic: Weather   Weblog installed  30 May 2001

I finally took the plunge and made PHP work. What a nightmare! Anyway, I'm now using weblog to maintain the diary.  more...


Topic: Pond   Bullfrog eviction  20 May 2001

When we started up the ponds in 2001, we found a bullfrog here. Unfortunately he (or she) escaped before he could be transported to a nearby pond. I don't want him eating the fish!

We finally found three bullfrogs and managed to evict all of them. Two of them went to local schools (pre-K) for the kids to look at. One of them was sent to the pond next door.


Topic: Pond   Tadpole acquisition  20 May 2001

During this operation we found lots of tadpoles, so we captured 10 and stuck them in our froggy pond where they seem to be doing well. We also captured a leopard frog and transported him (or her). However, I suspect that he has hopped off back home. This might have been due to the fact that my daughter named him 'Toad' thus giving him an identity crisis. This is the only picture that I have as he hopped into the pond about two seconds after I took this!


Topic: Pond   Final cleanup  29 Nov 2000

We finally got all the plants out and trimmed and sunk to the bottom of the ponds. Four plants are going to overwinter indoors in a large plastic tub by the outside door in the basement. We will see how they survive.

We also found eight fish (one gold, the rest black) in the top pond. Either their eggs were pumped up, or the eggs were attached to some plant that got moved during the year. These fish had to be moved to the bottom pond -- which is the only one that gets aerated during the winter.

I removed the remaining ice from the bottom pond as it had a fair amount of debris in it (mostly water hyacinth). Unfortunately there was one large dead frog that had become encased in the ice.


Topic: Weather     24 Nov 2000

We moved the anemometer onto the roof onto the same mast that has the analog anemometer (the Vigilant from Maximum). I also adjusted the rotor inside the anemometer assembly so that both magnets triggered the reed switch. This should (at least) double the reported wind speed, and bring it into line with reality.


Topic: Weather     2 Nov 2000

I finally got around to adding some new pictures to the website.


Topic: Pond     28 Oct 2000

We did some more cleanout, and found four fish in the top pond. This is rather mysterious as it is not clear where they came from. We did have two shubunkin in there for a time, and I did move some water hyacinth up there from the bottom pond, so maybe some eggs came up that way. Another path might be through the pump.

Anyway there is one gold fish about an inch long, two black fish about the same size, and another black fish about two inches long. The bad news is that the top pond will ice over completely -- I only have a bubbler in the bottom pond. We have to catch these guys (or gals) and transfer them down. I hope that they are big enough now that they won't get eaten.

This is very exciting. However, it does mean that the problem of the heron is still with us -- i.e. we have to continue to worry about how to keep it and the fish apart.


 Topic:    

Rolodex

gunnera
Neat description of the Gunnera Manicata -- a truly monstrous plant!

cwop
The Citizen Weather Observer Program is a loose collection of amateur weather station operators.

docsearls
The Doc Searls weblog -- he seems clueful and I read him.

jreceiver
Open source server for the Rio Receiver -- this is what I use.

spf-pobox
Information about SPF (Sender Permitted From)

ffmpeg
Open source audio/video streaming software -- this drives my pondcam


Philip Gladstone