Our pond is GROSS… let’s fix it with FIRE

Alright, we have a problem in our

pond

. We have a lot of cattails that have developed here over the two and a half years we have been on this property and it is so disgusting all over my lips that I get really tired. and the only way we knew to get rid of it initially was to use an excavator or something like that that could go in and take it out. Last year we also tested some chemicals that were safe for fish and tried spraying them. them and kill them and it just didn't kill them, so we're at our last hope here, let's try to burn them, see if we can clean up our

pond

by burning it, this would be fun, I could feel it.

The heat, oh my god, what did you find? These could be frog eggs, isn't that crazy? Yeah, I sent them back, so the good thing is that if it gets out of control, it will be in the water, so we can deal with it down here. but oh yeah, this is light and good oh yeah, that's going to burn so good, it's so hot, it's so hot I can feel the heat, oh my god, now it'll probably grow back it's so hot, it'll probably grow back and okay, we can deal with that, but gosh, can we get it straight around here because that's the biggest problem we have is we want to fish in different parts of the pond or hang out in different areas and it's just a no, just we can access a little.

There's a couple hundred feet there on that side and the rest we can't really access, so I'm hoping this is a long term solution. Okay, we're reaching the edge here. Hopefully, I can stop it right here. Oh then. hot, I'm like 10 feet away, it's melting my face, ah, it's so hot it's burning unbelievable, this is on the edge of where I thought it could continue, so I'm happy to see it keep going down here because we have a lots of trees lots of little trees down here oh I just caught this big area look at this oh my gosh oh my gosh oh maybe I don't need to be that close oh my gosh the cattails burn so fast it burned so far away in a very short amount of time.

I'm pretty impressed with how quickly they burn from there to here. Damn, I think I found the sink. Wow, a little snake here in our pond. Does anyone know what type of snake it is? cool okay let's get the snake back down so it can avoid the

fire

here oh it's about to light the big part okay we better get over there oh my gosh look how fast it's going to burn , let's look at this. I have a nice Christmas tree here for the future, hopefully it doesn't catch on

fire

. Oh, it looks like a storm right there, so here's one of the last big points on this side.

Has this caught fire now? What I'm really excited about is if it comes out here, all these cattails are in the water, it hasn't done very well in the water, so it's starting to work, that's what I'm really excited about watching even the water burn because it's It was really hard to get through here last year when I was trying to catch a goose here and I was walking through this and I kept getting stuff so I'm hoping that comes out of there and then down here we're getting closer to the duck coop but I don't think so. that there is enough to keep it running.

I think the duck coop will be fine, but I have to keep an eye on it too, so I think the ducks should be fine here, it will stop right there. The ducks are actually there. the other side of the pond, but it should end here and then we'll start on the other side there, look how far this fire burns this one, where would it start? and then it goes on, oh, almost to the ducks, okay. Our fire is almost done on this side, it's right on the edge and then we have a big break where we started it last year.

Now we're going to start with the entire south side of the pond and that's the last big area. go ahead, okay, eli is going to start this area that will start this whole side here, so okay, we're on the last side here, we've got both ends going, we're going to start right here in the middle as well. This helps speed up the process and then everything will be pretty clean. This is incredible. This is a good place. Hey dad, do you think you're going to do this next year? Yes, this is a great way to do it so far.

No complaints, it hasn't gotten out of control and then it just burns up and this is much faster and it's much cheaper, a couple thousand dollars cheaper than renting an excavator or having someone do it for you. It's only been an hour here, I haven't been able to access two thirds of our pond due to the amount of space it was taking up and here in an hour we have access to an area I've never been to. In this two acre pond, I would warn you that we had a couple of spots where it died when it came back to the edge of the grass, but every once in a while we had some ashes blow back, so it does have grass. or you have woods or something right next to your pond, be very careful so you don't spread out.

We have some trees like this that we need. Now we can easily enter and access them. We can cut them. We have some. Work to be done, we didn't get to the root of the problem because we only took off the tops and unless it burns down to the root it will continue to grow so we are going to fix it from time to time. in time, but given how easy it was to burn it, that's not a big deal, so we'll probably clean it up and cut down the trees. We'll be ready for an amazing summer this year at the pond uh-oh I can't wait uh-oh you're stuck between cats and dogs oh boy you got nervous here they go hello hello are you ready to go yeah show them the tools we have alright so that we have two things that we are going to use mainly we have our chainsaw, this is not a chainsaw, well, what is it called?

It's a trimmer with a blade and then we get our regular trimmer with a strong line and then we get our chainsaw and then the kids can use some scissors, oh show them that although this is cool, oh man, that'll almost like cutting things down , so we have a lot of trees in the second phase, it's been about a week now. a ton of trees to cut along this side, along that side and then over there there's a lot just the pruner we're going to go through with the blade, the pruner and then at the end if we have extra time today, I'll go in and we'll get all the cattails I can get out of here, but today will just be a final cleanup and then hopefully we'll have a little time, if we can play in the pond today, it'll be cold.

Still, but we can take the kids out and enjoy the fruits of our labor today, so this is our big patch of trees down here, it's about 50 feet and I never thought we'd clean it up or that I'd be able to stand up. In this area here in about 20 minutes, I think we will have cleared this entire area. We just couldn't get to it because of all the cattails around it and now we can get in here and cut it down, so I'm really excited to be able to get around this area of ​​the pond now that we're doing the last of the trimming and I know this is going to come back. to grow, but at least we'll keep it short from time to time.

I'll see if we can go somewhere different than I have. I got material from some pond companies to help clear out some moss and cattails, things like that, so I'm hoping we can take care of the rest that route now. Many of you are asking if we still have fish in the pond because a couple of years ago we put some feeder fish in there, we put in some grass carp, some shiners and some minnows to help feed the bass we have in there and we still have all of them caught some bluegills, we have some bats, we may hit it with more at some point, but there seem to be a lot of them here so I'm not sure if it's necessary, we're done with this pond.

Becky looks amazing, what do you think? Oh it looks great, a lot of hard work but it was definitely worth it. You think baby doesn't look good. Now you can fish everywhere in the pond. Yes, it looks great, swimming and fishing. Oh, speaking of swimming, we have a surprise for you. If you've been following our Instagram you may have caught a glimpse of this, but we have a fun little toy to end the day and enjoy the pond with you. i want to get this out eli it's a huge lily pad it's like six by seventeen feet let's get this out in the water and let the kids play isaiah do you want to get on it or should we get you a life jacket let's get you a life jacket what do you think girl , it's so fun, yes, yes, how would you like to do it by going to the willow pond, come on, is it burning cat tails?