Oh how cute is that toad! Glad you had a nice day when you worked on the pond Jenny. Today I planted annuals in the front yard and maybe if the rain holds off I will clean the veggie filter tomorrow. I just started it last week but already sludge has settled to the bottom. I used to put filter pads on the bottom but decided it would be easier to clean if I just opened the drainage valve every so often. My Koi that took a winter beating looks a little better every day. Really hoping she recovers again. That poor girl has such a hard time every winter and early spring. She is feisty though! Toads and more toads. Got a kick out of taking them out of the skimmer for little Noah to see. He was afraid to touch them. lol Also got some impatients for the floating islands. Maybe tomorrow I make some new ones. Loved the weather today. Hear we are in for rain for the next few days. A shocker I know. lol Lisa

Hi all - wow thank you for the input! For some reason a few of these comments never made it to me via email, so sorry for the delay in response. CHAS: I think I'm going to just go with a shorter stream, which will cut down on the height a great deal. I will wrap it around the pond (instead of going straight up the sloped ground) - which will make the head height less and also keep the flow calmer for froggies. I also decided that I will focus the main pond on fish; and I'm going to put a little, shallower pond tucked along the creek which will be just for frogs - with a pump maybe, but no filter or anything (my current frog pond has just a pump/waterfall, no filter, and the frogs are very happy and healthy there). Hopefully the frogs will natuarlly choose the little pond instead of the bigger pond, and even if they lay eggs in the lower pond, I can just move them up to the froggie pond. I at least will feel like I've done my part to provide a safe haven for them :) RSINGLEY: I had read a similar recommendation elsewhere of putting mesh and other media around the pump - I like the idea, though I do wonder what the negative effect of not filtering the larger particles will be? (seems silly to get a debris handling pump and then restrict the debris from getting in, but alas, the dilemma of tadpole lovers). FROGMAN4: You'd be right on the calculation but it's not all at a 3.5' depth, and it's an oval pond. If you picture an upside down oval wedding cake: the biggest layer is 16x13 but it's only about a half-foot deep (it's a rock shelf). The second layer is 14x11 and is 1 foot deep. The third layer is 11x8 and is 2 feet deep (so total depth at the bottom will be 3.5). I calculated each "layer" out as separate pond volumes; using the oval pond forumla of L x W x D x 6.7, the top layer is 696 gallons, 2nd layer is 1031, 3rd layer is 1179 = 2906 gallons. The third (bottom) layer will have sloped walls, too, which actually will cut down the gallons, but I'm fine with over-estimating. I have wavered back and forth a hundred times about going with a skimmer filter as opposed to an external mechanical filter. I still haven't hit the "place order" button on my pump/filter order, but I made up my mind last night that I was going to go with a Laguna max flow pump (2000 gal), pressurized filter (3200), and also have a waterfall bio filter at the top. Holding off on the drain for now, but I saw some that I can add later if the need warrants. Chose the external filter instead of skimmer because I didn't want to have to do 2 pumps, and I just felt that not having the pump at the bottom (which it wouldn't be if I put the pump in the skimmer) wasn't the best idea... which was my deciding factor. I hope what I'm choosing will be sufficient... weeks of research got me here, and I'm ready to just install all this already! :) MEGANMCA: Thanks for that link - it's very helpful! I did read that pipe diameter is important - I'm going to go with 1.5" and hope that's sufficient. My sister just installed the same pump/filter combo I'm using with 1.5" and it's a beatuful flow. Her waterfall is a little lower than mine, but I think it will suffice... If not, can add a 2nd pump but hoping I don't have to do that. Thank you all so much for the input - and as always open to any other thoughts/suggestions!

Hi Lisa, Thats an amazing story about the grackles! Though, it doesnt surprise me much because Ive seen similar smart behavior from them and from Curve-billed Thrashers. Both of them seem to be very smart birds. Thereve been studies on crows that show they make tools, make plans to figure out problems, and so on. IIRC, they were at least around 3-4 year old human level in thinking. Most humans would be surprised by that! Especially my mother-in-law-to-be whom called grackles "junk birds" which I found shocking as a concept. I understand the worry over native vs. exotic species But "junk"?! When I first saw the flock of grackles last year, it was like the Hitchcock movie The Birds! There were suddenly two decent sized trees totally black with grackles and they were all squawking about something. I thought it might be a baby, went out to see, and though most of them flew to a safer distance, a few did stay to see what I was doing. I didnt find a baby but they left shortly after with me none-the-wiser to what they were going on about :P I just want you to know, Im not anti-grackle. I love all creatures, though I did kill a couple of Black Widows last year, I usually move insects that scare me :) Either that or encourage them to go elsewhere. When we had a HUGE ants nest in our walkway, (the giant black ants that bite), I started putting sunflower seeds down so the doves would keep the area busy. The ants soon moved, taking some sunflower seeds with them! Id read to pour boiling water down the hole but thats just horrible to me. Anyway, most of our tadpoles are gone, so Im not going to net the pond. Since the grackles bully the other birds we got some big bowls and put them on the other side of the yard and moved our birdbaths into the shade over there, too. The other birds have found them and seem grateful. The weather here is *so* harsh, and with drought even worse. There really is a desperate need for water. It would be nice if it didnt draw *every* cat within 10 block radius since they sometimes kill birds. Its so heartbreaking :( But since we have the shadiest yard with the most water for at least a one-mile radius, we probably get the worst of it. Totally off topic, but now thinking about it, before we took in our cat that was abandoned (in the desert! in the summer! ugh humans!) the cat situation was a lot worse. He is *completely crazy* and tries our patience to the absolute limit, daily, and now has to be kept in until after sunset because he was killing birds Probably because he cant get over being abandoned and starving. He will fight any cat over his "territory," even our other semi-feral cat we found here years ago. This drives us mad, but maybe his craziness has paid off for us in the other cats killing birds area as weve had fewer cats hanging around probably not wanting to deal with him! Take care, -A

Chas.. Yes, they do look like the ones on the GEICO commmercial except mine are MUCH fatter because they have such wonderful plants to eat. hahaha I laughed myself silly the first time I saw that commercial. Really I love them, especially the babies, but it is funny to see morning glory vines with no leaves as far as the little critters can climb and blossoms at just the very top of the vine. Also squash and tomatoes with bites taken out of them are delightful surprises. In addition to the woodchucks, my sweet BF is now scalping the morning glory vines to feed a neighbor's pet rabbit. I gave up on sweet potato vines. The woodchucks go into some kine of rapture when I plant them. I swear they have learned to levitate to get plants they like. Anne