Yesterday we got the solar pump on line. It took about 3 hours to fill the 500 gallon tank at the top of the property. Pretty cool.
KNowingt that we had irrigation ability, we moved our attention to preparing the textilis holes and getting the dripline ready, only to have Malte come out and complain that he didn't want that high of a species right there. I thought that we had discussed this and that he had already accepted that was what was going there, and that he was having problems with another spot, so that was kind of frustrating and threw me for the rest of the day, which was annoying, since I had three workers to direct and had planned to keep them busy mulching and planting and watering that hedge.
So... we turned our attention to harvesting the salivinia from the top pond and mulching the barn dome garden, and seeing about culling the goldfish. Eric, Tim, Sharesa and myself all got into the pond and scooped the weed, and transfered it to the truck via a wheelbarrow and large buckets.
In the process we realised that the "goldfish" are in fact a golden kind of tilapia. The reason they are so small, I guess is that there are too many in there competing for food. So, I am not sure how to proceed. I think we will continue to try and drain the pond down to the point where we can cull the population down, but we probably won't try to replace them with the silvery blue variety we have in the bottom pond... and we'll probably start feeding them and develop a cantilever net system up there to harvest them too...
We also discovered how deep the silt is in that pond and began to try to remove it, and then realised that it would be much easier once we have drained the pond.
Of course, as luck would have it, the rains seem to be back now, 7mm last night!