Oh Horton, you are so funny. I've got the picture in my mind. LOL. We had such a rare cold winter that I told one of the girls at work that when the temps hit 50 I'd wear a bikini and I'm cold-natured enough as it is. It is sad to lose some, but that is nature doing her thing. Thank you. Jenny, I am glad you enjoyed them. I did the same thing and poured through hundreds of pictures. The thing I liked best is every pond is different and as is their flair for ponding. And I have gotten so much great advice. I had really been really picky about the rocks I wanted, like just certain colors, shapes, whatnot. While I am far from finishhed, I am happy with the looks of it so far. I think the best thing you can do to avoid the necklace look, is to vary the sizes of the rocks. You will get the necklace look when you first start out, but it will go away when you start stacking. Now I am lookiing for inspiration for landscaping OUTSIDE the pond myself. You all have a wonderful day.

digger, the first year or two we had a pond, we were delighted that the toads used it to spawn in. We made a floating,nursery basket to keep the toad tadpoles from being eaten by the fish and we were thrilled to see the little toad-lets eventually take off into their new world, our garden and farther afield, to feed on all the pesky insects that chew up our flowers and plants. What I did not count on was, that the following years those precious little toad-lets, now mature, would return to their Garden of Eden to beget more spawn, from which commeth more toads to beget, prosper and multiply again and again, until the noise from hundreds of them, begetting and singing their praises all night long in the spring, would have awakened the dead. I have transported gallons of spawn, heaps of tadpoles and hundreds of adult toads to a nature area near us. Where they can beget to their little heart's content and sing happily all night without bothering me or my neighbours. Toads are much hardier and are surviving at a better rate, than their cousins the frogs, in to-days poisoned environment. With the upsurge in garden water features and the protection they afford to these amphibians, toads have a greater chance of survival and multiplying. Again, like a number of other pond related subjects, it is up to the individual pond owner to decide what is in or out, what they want or don't want, in their personal little Eden's. For me a couple of toads in and around my pond, is fine, as long as they are both of the same sex. :) I don't want to go through all that noise and transporting again. "Horton"

I am just so glad to read about so many people trying very hard to maintain as much natural balance as possible. I see the awful devastation of pristine but "barren" neighborhoods like mine... with no ladybugs hummingbirds in sight and plenty of dead baby birds too... I too haven't seen toads forever! I'm sure they've been completely extinct due to the "grubkiller" poisons that all lawncare companies constantly apply as their standard package... I too put strict rules that they were never ever! to use this stuff on my lawn... Much to my horror, the lawn care people again forgot my orders... I was soooo furious! I don't trust any grubkiller, no matter how much the silly lawn proponents claim that theirs is harmless... One of their versions made my "frisbee catching in the grass" dog sick for an entire month... and she wasn't even allowed on that grass until it had a good rain on it, and still it wasn't enough...Likewise, the other grubkiller has only been tested for a year, which is stupid in my view... What they don't test for is long term exposure and health for years down the road... I never trust company so-called "testing"... Anyway, bless the toads, garden spiders, ladybugs, and patterned lizards, and everyone who has allowed them to flourish...

It seems dunks aren't entirely safe for birds. I put a very small crumb of a donut into my fantail pigeon's bird bath to keep the mosquitos from breeding while we were on vacation. My son called us while we were in California to say the birds were dying. When we got home 8 out of our 12 pigeons were dead. Our birds also had pigeon waterers to drink from so guess not all of them drank the birdbath water. Mosquitos never get into the waterers, but I had to empty out the birdbaths every few days because of wiggletails in them. I've kept pigeons for almost 30 years and never had anything like this happen. Thought of writing to the company that makes them to inquire to see if pigeons were particularly sensitive to them, but never did. Glad to hear that apparently the amphibians are doing okay with mosquito dunks, just thought I'd pass this along.