I Splurged…
…on a new pool. It seemed vital.
Wanna see?
Scroll down…
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OK. So, maybe it is not a 40-foot lap pool.
But a lot of birds and small animals will perhaps find great delight, during all this heat, in the pool.
I placed a branch in the pool to help small animals in and out. Two bricks hold it down. And I only filled the pool with like 4-inches of water.
Pool party!
There have been no Carriage House updates because I have been…quite sensibly…hiding inside the air-conditioning. Today was 107. Well…yikes.
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107!!!!! oh my god!
It is really getting scary how hot it is this summer, and saddening that it’s only going to get worse from here on out. I’m from Long Island, where usually the summer is fairly calm, but we have a heat wave today and tomorrow. Feels 100 with humidity, that is rare for us. Scary times.
The carriage house will definitely be waiting for cooler days.
What a great idea for the birds and other critters out in the heat! Thank you
Good grief. We only beat you by 1° here in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. No wonder you bought a pool!
My small ground-level birdbath is a popular destination. Even the lizards are thirsty in this incessant heat.
The stick and rocks are a great idea. 4 inches is too deep for birds but they can sit on the rocks to drink.
For bees, butterflies, etc. use a flower pot saucer and put pebbles in it so that they can alight on the pebbles and just drink. Bees and butterflies can’t swim so need something very shallow with a place to land. When I go water walking at the outdoor rec pool I use an aquarium fish net to scoop out the poor bees and dump them on the edge to dry out before they fly away.
I’ve considered getting a very large kiddie pool for Diana and Freyja to play in but they seem to have found their own way to beat the heat and for the most part it has stayed below 90. The north side is in constant shade and they hang out there a lot. It is noticeably cooler than everywhere else. We spent today at the dealership getting clean oil and filters. Tomorrow, back to stepping.
If you have a second pool (or dish or saucer …) it would be a good idea to put it on top of something where the birds are out of reach of cats. In my garden the lid of the barrel in which I keep nettle manure serves as bath for birds and insects.
After the big heatwave we are lucky to have cooler wheather with a bit of rain after the draught here in southern Germany.
My bird bath is shallow and 2 and a quarter inches deep if full of water. It is liked by swallows and blackbirds for bathing and I like watching them.
So happy to see you left some water for the critters! How kind of you! <3
You may want to get some of those mosquito dunk discs and put a piece of one in the water to prevent mosquitos. I can’t have standing water around my house, the mosquitos are bad enough here already. I don’t know how bad they are up in Kansas, but it’s worth considering, and they don’t hurt birds or little animals. Just prevent the larvae from metamorphosizing or something.
It’s a good idea, that water, especially if you aren’t getting as much regular rain as we have been.