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This is the floating solar powered fountain in the pond. It also aerates.

It is made with a 24 volt deep well pump, mounted in a perforated plastic bucket using a pool funoodle float wrapped around the top.

I am building a small jonboat for my daughter’s pond.

It is just 8 feet long. Mostly plywood.

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As I mentioned in my previous post, I call huckleberries any small, wild blueberries.  Well, I decided to find out which ones actually are huckleberries.

In the large patch near me there are at least 3 different types of berries.  Two of them look like normal blueberries but grow on low bushes or high bushes.  Strangely enough these are called High Bush and Low Bush Blueberries. The 3rd one is a very high bush.  The berries are darker.  Almost black.  And shiny.  Blueberries have a dull coating on them.  And these berries don’t have as much of a “crown” on them, as I call it, like blueberries do.

These are Black Huckleberries.  They taste different, but good.  The seeds are harder.  They have what I consider an almost cherry taste.

In my several acre patch of berries, the Black Huckleberries appear to be the most abundant.  Maybe because they grow above the rest.  The blueberries are often hidden under the huckleberries.  Also the blueberries seem to ripen sooner than the huckleberries.  Although some berries from all are ripe at the same time.  At this writing many blueberries are almost done while most of the huckleberries are just ripening.

But that varies a lot with amount of sunlight.

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These are huckleberries for as far as the eye can see.

The strange thing is that they are a wide assortment of types of blueberries.  Some huckleberries, some high bush, some low.  I use the generic term huckleberry for any wild, smaller blueberries.

Last year there wasn’t one berry.  This year they are loaded.  Now if I could just get some ripe ones before the bears strip them clean.  Bears don’t wait for them to ripen.…

Crows ate most of the corn seeds I planted before they sprouted.   The rest they pulled out after they were growing.   So I have resorted to the black arts before I replant.

(Note: The scary breathing is just the way my normal breathing sounds on video.  Another reason I like being a hermit.)

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Lily found a dead turkey.

So I collected a few feathers.

I found a use for one.

I call it macaroni.…

Last year it seemed almost every rain storm that came this way would disappear just before it arrived or it would pass to the north or the south.   The crops suffered greatly.

So this year I am setting up a way to easily water the field.

I am using a solar powered submersible pump and will be connecting it to soaker hoses that I can put along the field rows.

I may pump water from the spring to a storage tank and then gravity feed it.  Or collect rainwater in the tank and pump it to the fields.   I will see what works the best.

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