laura - on the ones I saw, it was palm leaves cut to shape. I would expect them being all recycled yard stuff! The palm leaves have a hard brown section near the trunk - I was going to try cutting some of that to shape. I didn't end up buying one, just too much & it's pretty basic. The ones I saw were neon or bright spray paints w/ squiggles of glitter paint even. I thought this was an excellent way to use up the little tubes of leftovers I have everywhere. Sadly, I'm flying back to NY tonight, but I'll work on them there. That's where all my supplies are anyway, just need to find coconuts! lol Anyone know if Michaels or AC Moore or any craft store carry coconut shells? I'd like to toy with some until I get back in 3-4 weeks. Maybe I should pack some in my suitcase since their FREE here... I'm sure airport security would love that! lol

Froggie looks like he could use something to eat :)

Hi Mike: My pond never froze over either. I, too, had a solar pond cover on mine which the wind blew off because it never had a chance to freeze to the surface of the pond. I did a walk around this week and scared five to six frogs in my top pond. When I cleaned my settlement pond last fall I had to put over 100 taddies in a pail till I was done. I got so tired of removing them I left about a foot of silt in the bottom of the pond. I may end up moving out so the frogs can stay. lol My fish are up and begging for food, but I haven't fed them yet. There is lots of algae for them to graze on right now. Oh yes, and there are the things you hoped wouldn't live though the winter: like the darn pennywort I put in the pond last year that took over the whole surface. It's sprouting from under the rocks surrounding the pond. I think I'm sorry I ever put it in the pond. It took me 3-4 hours to clear the surface of the pond last fall. I had to cut through the stuff with a hacksaw blade. All my marginals are growing and need to be divided. My whole top pond is covered in duckweed. My lotus plant that I overwintered in the house (which I thought had died) is now sprouting since I moved it outside. I have got my work cut out for me though. I have to totally rebuild my top pond due to erosion. But it looks like Spring has spring. Ponders, start your pumps!!!!!!!!!!! Jenny

Probably. We have a pond with three pools separated by weirs. About four years ago, I cleaned our pond removed; everything and scrubbed. We purchased about a dozen $0.26 feeder fish. Only four survived the winter. The next spring I did some minor repairs and started the pump. It ran about two weeks, and then I shut it down as we took a long vacation. When we returned from vacation we had hundreds of babies, in all three pools. From the first four that survived the winter we have about 70 fish in the three pools today. The original four are over 8" long. They reproduce every spring.