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I built a wildlife pond [video]
- carapace 4y agoSee also this thread on Permies.com forums: "My Progress Gleying a Pond With Pigs" https://permies.com/t/38201/Progress-Gleying-Pond-Pigs https://permies.com/t/38201/Progress-Gleying-Pond-Pigs Long story short: pigs make ponds. You gotta see it to believe it.
- culi 4y agoIt's a technique that goes back to Russian peasantry (and likely before that). But it's also possible with ducks as Geoff Lawton has shown in another video. If you don't have the patience to let a bunch of ducks breed but you still want to build a pond without plastic liner you can also look into buying bentonite clay (or you may already have some clay underneath already. Just dig and find out! Just make sure to preserve the topsoil so you can replace it)
- musicale 4y agoSlightly OT, but is youtube even usable without an ad blocker? Occasionally I make the mistake of going to it in a browser without aggressive ad blocking and it's miserable.
- paulcole 4y agoFor me it is! In exchange for $12 or so a month, I never see any ads.
- blamazon 4y agoCan someone explain to me why this sentiment is often downvoted on HN? Why is YouTube seemingly the only software platform that people chafe at having an ad-free tier and seemingly believe should be completely free to all with no ads? It seems absolutely intuitive to me that if you don't want to see ads on a content enterprise, which are monetizing that content enterprise, you should generally be prepared to pay. Why is that deemed so outrageous with regards to YouTube?
- speed_spread 4y agoBecause compared to other streaming services, that money is made off content that YouTube didn't produce and pays peanuts for. And because YouTube/Google will still track you and use that data to make more money in their other advertising schemes.
- oh_sigh 4y agoYouTube didn't produce the content(except sometimes when they do actually pay content creators), but they pay massive amounts(billions of dollars per year), not peanuts, to build the hosting and discovery infra that lets people get these views, which is why very few huge creators host their content on, say, Vimeo, or by themselves, or on peertube. On top of that, creators have ways of monetizing their videos which completely leave YouTube from getting any kind of a cut, such as Patreon, sponsorships, in-video ads, etc.
- magic_hamster 4y agoYouTube is getting progressively worse every year with ads, introducing unskippable ads, mid rolls, end rolls, several ads queued, etc. At times it feels plain hostile for the users, especially those who have been watching for a long time, before any of the monetization existed. YouTube used to be totally different, also it was free with very unintrusive ads. It's hard to sell people on the current monetization model and a lot of the current practices to get you to pay just antagonize viewers. The content is also not always perceived to be worth your money. There are also moral issues, like Youtube showing ads on demonitized videos, or on channels that don't qualify for monetization. Meaning not all creators even benefit from YouTube's ads. But eventually it boils down to user experience. You can block ads and get a massively better experience for free, or pay to have an OK experience (sponsor block isn't included in YouTube premium).
- blamazon 4y agoOn sponsor block, most of the creators I follow have visual indicators for the sponsor time so I can just tap the arrow key or the screen until that goes away. I guess I don't mind that 'skip ad' arrangement since the creators are getting paid directly by the sponsor. Some creators also have Patreon model where you can get sponsor-free edits for regular payments which seems like an alright decentralized solution.
- _hcuq 4y agoMy problem is that I hate the suggestion algorithm. Does paying get rid of that?
- agumonkey 4y agoublock wasn't enough ? i never felt the need to pay with it
- kome 4y agoyes ublock origin does the job, no need to pay. no need to pay google in particular.
- paulcole 4y agoI do feel the need to pay because I enjoy watching YouTube.
- paulcole 4y agoI don’t use an adblocker at all. I try to pay for the sites I enjoy with money whenever possible. When that’s not an option, I gladly look at the ads I’m shown. If I find the ads distasteful enough then I stop going to that site.
- agumonkey 4y agofair enough
- stephen_g 4y agoYeah, I get enough out of YouTube that I’m willing to pay that. Apparently a premium view pays out more to creators than hundreds of regular views, so that feels good too. But I can’t believe so many normal people (who don’t know about adblockers or watch in the app) are able to stand non-premium YouTube, honestly.
- Geee 4y agoIt is usable but incredibly frustrating. It seems that Youtube's strategy is to annoy users with ads as much as possible to get them to upgrade to the paid plan.
- dylan604 4y agoIs that really the strategy, or is it to sell as many ads as possible?
- jerrygoyal 4y agoI think running ads is more profitable than selling paid plans.
- kuschku 4y agoFor YouTubers, paid users watching the video pays more than ad supported users.
- cryptonector 4y agojavascript:void(document.getElementsByTagName("video")[0].playbackRate = 10)
- readthenotes1 4y agoCan we get {video} tags added to the title? Every time one of these links opens directly to a video I feel like I've been Rick rolled
- sbierwagen 4y agoIt shows what domain the link goes to. Did you expect a text post at youtube.com?
- readthenotes1 4y agoIt doesn't for me in my rss reader :(
- ilamont 4y agoIf you build a pond, wildlife will come. I've done two small fish ponds using heavy duty rigid plastic liners expecting only the fish (koi and shubunkin) would enjoy it. We live less than ~10 miles/~15 km from downtown Boston. We were surprised to see the second pond, which is next to the north side of our basement and on a small hill, gets all kinds of animals and birds coming to drink. Racoons, possum, fox, squirrels, and many types of small birds. Without fail, one or two tree frogs find it every summer and settle in on the water plant we put out there (taro) in a semi-submerged pot. The frogs disappear in the early autumn. Before the first hard frost, we bring the taro plant inside in a bucket, and place it next to a sunny window for the next 5 or 6 months. By mid-December the pond freezes over except where we have a small pump running. The fish go dormant at the bottom, under the ice. Then in spring it starts back up again. The ice melts, the fish come back to life, and the animals return to drink. We put the taro plant back out, and once again the pond is the center of life in our side yard. Images: https://www.instagram.com/p/4O0ZZGJJvH/ https://www.instagram.com/p/4O0ZZGJJvH/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CiwTVBLOuUG/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CiwTVBLOuUG/
- ilamont 4y agoJust remembered, I did a video about making the pond. Includes clips of the fish under the ice. https://youtu.be/8ExfrhjpMp4 https://youtu.be/8ExfrhjpMp4
- rexreed 4y agoDo you find any wild animals (raccoons) eat the fish? Also any opinions on floating plants (water hyacinth, water lettuce, frogbit) instead of Taro? I built a pond and put in a soft PVC liner instead of one of those preformed ones. I had it out for a summer expecting frogs but they didn't show. Mosquitos did tho.
- ilamont 4y agoSee my reply upthread regarding raccoons and herons. We have tried all kinds of water plants, including fishweed, water hyacinth, water lillies and tiny little floating green plants that I have scooped from the nearby river and marsh. None of them survive, likely because it’s such a shady spot on the north side of the house and there’s very little direct sunlight, except in the morning. the only thing that does consistently well is the taro plant. It actually tries to self propagate but we don’t have enough space for another water pot. Regarding mosquitoes: this is not standing water, because of the pump which goes year-round. I also believe the fish will eat most bugs and any larvae that start to form. they seem to be constantly hungry. Except in the fall and winter.
- tony_cannistra 4y agoThe pond is fun and beautiful, but the wildlife videography in this video makes it totally worth watching.
- voisin 4y agoIs there some way of determining how deep you’d have to dig for water to naturally fill it faster than it evaporated away?
- elihu 4y agoI don't think depth matters that much, except that with a deeper pond you have less risk of it drying out completely in a dry season. More important is: how much rain do you get, how warm is your climate, what is the average humidity, is the pond well sealed, and does the pond collect runoff from the surrounding area? I'm in Oregon. I made a pond during the pandemic that's probably about 1500 gallons, and about 3 1/2 feet deep at the deepest. When it gets hot and dry in the summer I have to add a couple inches of water maybe every couple weeks, but for the rest of the year I don't add anything at all. (I tend to get a fair bit of silt runoff in the pond during the winter, because some of the ground nearby drains into the pond.)
- voisin 4y agoI’m in the Rockies. The vast majority of our annual rainfall comes in the form of snow and then a short melt that leads to a late spring to late fall that is quite dry and warm. I’ve got 5 acres and would love to dig a pond to attract wildlife. Based on what you say, I think the keys for me would be 1) digging it at the bottom of the property and building a berm On the low side to collect as much snowmelt as possible 2) digging it deep enough to hit clay to ensure it is well sealed 3) adding some shade plantings to minimize evaporation Did you find any good resources before you dug yours?
- elihu 4y agoI've built ponds before, so I was already familiar with the process. I don't know how much water you'd lose from soil percolation; I've always just used a liner. EPDM rubber is what most people use. It's not terribly expensive and can be purchased in surprisingly large continuous sheets, or multiple sheets can be glued together if you want to go even bigger. I keep koi in my pond. Koi have particular requirements with respect to aeration and filtration and depth. If you're just building a general purpose pond those aren't as much of an issue. Be aware that if you use herbicides or pesticides that you don't want to end up in the pond, then you probably shouldn't design the pond to capture the maximum amount of runoff. You'll probably want to at least get some mosquito fish to keep mosquitoes under control. Mosquito dunks are another solution -- they're these floating things you toss in the pond that contain a bacteria that's specifically harmful to mosquito larvae. Some pond plants can survive a freeze (cattail, azolla, lily pads, horse tail) whereas others don't (water lettuce, water hyacinth, taro). I'll usually buy a clump or two of water lettuce and water hyacinth in the spring, and then by the end of summer I have so much I have to fish it out of the pond to keep it from taking over completely.
- jp0d 4y agoI watched this yesterday after a friend recommended it. Very nice videography with the birds footage. Also he handled the feral cat situation quite humanely.
- wiradikusuma 4y agoWow. This is like playing simulation games but in the real. It takes a lot of patience, but this guy seems to know what he's doing so it's worth it!
- mafreeman 4y ago
- virgulino 4y agoAnother interesting project would be to monitor how much wildlife the cat will kill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
- matheusmoreira 4y agoI will never look at cats the same way again.
- jdkee 4y agoI believe the author mentioned that the cat was adjusting to life indoors.
- aliswe 4y agoIt was quite malnourished so I'm guessing it didn't catch much.
- pluijzer 4y agoI once found a huge trail of lemmings outside leading up to my cat. Quite difficult feeling for somebody who loves cats and also all other creatures. Luckily the cat has fully adjusted now for an indoor live.
- sendfoods 4y agoIs there anything a cat owner can do, when having an indoor cat isn't an option? Some kind of collar that produces noise maybe?
- voakbasda 4y agoYou can put a wide-ruffled, brightly-colored collar (with a bell) on the cat. My wife found one on Etsy for our little fluffy hunter, and the combo of noise/color allows the birds to hear/see him coming and skedaddle.
- ovi256 4y agoYes, a collar with a bell reduced predation by cats, and is recommended by the Royal Society for Protection of Birds, among others. Now, to be fair, it is not without its cost. It happens that cats get it tangled in fences or other obstacles and die by strangulation or predation.
- kls0e 4y agoThat's super beautiful. Many thanks!
- vfistri2 4y agoOne of the most inspiring "small" things a man can do. On a side note It really shows the guy doing this video is fully enjoying what he does.
- pvaldes 4y agoThe best part of my garden, by a mile. If you enjoy wildlife and have a boring coin in a sunny place just do it.