KANSAS POND SOCIETY NEWSLETTER January 2008

President: Terry Bennett 943-0094, [email protected] Vice-President: Jeff Hoffman 744-1899 [email protected] Treasurer: Larry Determann 945-0017, [email protected] Secretary: Susan Kandt 838-6681, [email protected] Newsletter Editor: Mike Kandt 838-6681, [email protected]

FROM THE PRESIDENT UPCOMING EVENTS By Terry Bennett

Jan 5 KPS Meeting Hello, Ponders! WOW, what a great Christmas party. The turnout was Feb 2 KPS Meeting fantastic, the food was great, the decorations were Over the Top, and Mar 5-9 Wichita Garden Show gifts abounded aplenty. After a wonderful meal, a plaque was awarded Mar 22 Lily Divide/Auction to Mike Hopple for his outstanding two-year term as President. I too April No Meeting May 3 KPS Meeting would like to thank Mike for his outstanding leadership and innovative Jun 7 KPS Meeting ideas he has brought to the group. He has left me with many events Jul12-13 KPS Pond Tour (Tentative already planned and booked for the upcoming year, giving me the date) opportunity to somewhat ease into this position without being completely overwhelmed JANUARY MEETING The Dirty Santa gift exchange was a great success, with some Paleontologist outstanding gifts. A special thanks to Sandy Miller for stepping up as Mike Everhart our Master of Ceremonies for the Dirty Santa event and to Connie Saturday, January 5 Volkman for assisting her with recording what had been stolen. I personally felt bad about stealing the Koi downspout, thus depriving

6:30 PM - ? Wanita Wright the opportunity to steal it. Okay, so I didn’t really feel At Botanica bad at all, but as your new President I want to try to sound caring and Follow the signs from Seneca and humble. The entire event was a festive delight, with a special thanks McClean going out to Janie Chisholm’s decorating committee. The decorations and background music made this a very special event. Janie’s committee Mike Everhart is the Adjunct Curator consisted of Cindy Vadakin, who set up and handled the background of Paleontology at the Sternberg music; and decorations set-up by Marilyn Roberts, Lyda Andrews, Mike Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kandt, Darla Whipple-Frain, David Frain, Mike and Kathy Hopple, and Kansas, since 1998, the Past President of course, Dave and Janie Chisholm. of the Kansas Academy of Science, editor of the Transactions of the I was asked to somewhat introduce myself to the membership in this Kansas Academy of Science, and newsletter. Not an easy task to do in print. I am somewhat a new author of Oceans of Kansas. Mike member and haven’t had an opportunity to meet many of you will talk about prehistoric fish in personally, nor do a lot of you know who I am. So, okay, here goes. Kansas. Something to make you think I’m a big guy -- six feet tall, with gray hair, a gray, long and rather twice about taking a dip in your pond. bushy mustache, and as Susan Kandt pointed out, I have been known to wear tie-dye shirts fairly often. I am also the guy who does the metal art. Bring an entrée and side dish or But the easiest way to know who I am is to come to the next meeting. dessert. Drinks and service will be As for the rest of my resumé, I have been involved in the concept, provided. planning, and construction phases on Tom Fagen’s Garden Show committee and will continue to support Tom and the rest of the Don’t miss this one. It should be a committee. very interesting presentation. Some of my goals for the club are to enhance the web site and to try to get more media coverage and support for the Pond Tour. I also would like to introduce a new feature consisting of a web link of material pertaining to ponds, gardening, birds, butterflies, dragonflies, fish (okay, Wanita, Koi) and so on. I would like for this link to be on the web site before you have to Did you know… log on so it is open for nonmembers to view as well. This might entice people to join our club even from afar. I A koi takes 4 hours to digest its food in warm haven’t decided what to call this monthly link, but maybe water; it takes 10 hours to digest food in 55 you have an idea what to call it? Terry’s Treasure? degree water. wcw President’s Pick of the month? Whatever we call it I want your ideas for sites that you might have found that you think may be interesting to the rest of the club. Keep in mind the links needs to be of educational content and not of retail places on the web for pond and gardening supplies.

So here is my first link to visit. I hope you find it interesting. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html.

The next KPS meeting will be January 5th at Botanica at 6:00 pm. Our speaker will be Paleontologist Mike Everhart. Mike is the author of a book titled Oceans of Kansas and will take us back millions of years when Kansas was an ocean with large sea creatures. If you would like to visit Mike’s web site you can check it out at http://www.oceansofkansas.com/index2.html. ADVERTISING RATES Business Card Size Ad (about 2" x 3 ½"): $15 As for our dinner, it will be provided by our members and per 3-month period; $50 per year your great entrées, side dishes and/or deserts. Quarter-Page Ad (about 3 ½" x 4 ½"): $30 per Don’t forget 2008 dues are due, so bring your checkbook, 3-month period; $100 per year along with the form located within this newsletter, or mail Half-Page Ad (about 5" x 7 ½"): $60 per 3- it to Larry Determann. See you at Botanica. And HAPPY month period; $200 per year Full-Page Ad (8 ½” x 11"): $400 per year NEW YEAR!

Terry Bennett

Big Pond

This liner is being installed in a new large pond at the new Jardine Housing Complex in Manhattan, KS. I don’t know the liner or pond size, but it’s in acres. Notice the backhoe and workers covering the liner with soil. BIIIG!!!

WATER By Duane Van Dolah

VIOLET The violets have a group of that can adapt to seasonal wet flooding. Out of 500 species there are a few that can grow around the pond. These plants all care more for the semi-shade in zones 4-7. Most have growth 4-6 inches tall and wide in wet to damp soil. Foliage and flower color give its species its distinction. Propagation is by division and seed. Viola cornuta, horned violet, is a native of the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain. This species grows 12 inches high, with small green leaves covered in large, long-lived violet-shaped flowers of white, lilac- blue, and deep blue. Viola cucullata looks like a common blue violet and grows great in a wet shady bank or seasonally flooded woods. It can tolerate water over the crown for three to five days. Viola labradorica is from the far north of Canada, Greenland, and North America. It grows 1 ½ to 3 inches tall and has small violet flowers in white with violet-veined bases coming from a mound of DUES ARE DUE heart-shaped leaves. A , `Purpurea`, is a good to look for. It forms a groundcover of dark-green to Dues for the Kansas Pond Society are due purple leaves with light purple flowers. Viola lanceolata is January 1. We do not send out invoices, the best violet for water. Flowers are white with pale blue so just send a check for $20 to Larry faces and darker stamens. Viola macloskeyi is very Determann, 1508 N Mt. Carmel, Wichita, adaptable and heat tolerant. The flowers are a very pale KS, 67203 with the form below. Your dues blue. Viola nephrophylla is similar to Viola lanceolata but are important to cover our costs for this is two-thirds the size and a darker color of flower with a newsletter and other club expenses. good tolerance of high pH in the water and soil. Viola Many members find that this cost is more palustris is the least heat tolerant of the violets listed here. than redeemed through the year. If we It does not do well south of zone 6. It again is similar to don’t receive your renewal before the end Viola lanceolata, but the foliage is wider and the flowers a of the garden show, we must take your little bluer. name off our mailing list. So send in your dues as soon as you can. Some information was taken from Greg & Sue Speichert’s Encyclopedia of Water Garden Plants. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, Inc., 2004, p. 282-283.

KANSAS POND SOCIETY MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL Renewal for one year (January thru December) $20.00

Name or Names: ______

Address: ______

Phone Number: ______E-Mail: ______

Please indicate how you would like to receive the newsletter: Web-site?____ Mail? ______

Detach or print out and send with your renewal check to Larry Determann, 1508 N. Mt. Carmel, Wichita, KS 67203

TIP OF THE MONTH Aaron’s Lawncare By Mike Kandt * Services Include * Additional Winter finally made it. As I write this, just days Services before the winter solstice, snow blankets - Lawn Mowing - Beds Cleaned everything. All we want to do is to cocoon. Just - Lawn & Curb Edging - Gutters Cleaned stay indoors and stay warm. Holiday celebrations - Sidewalks & Driveways - Trees Trimmed/ also distract us from the pond and garden. But cleaned off afterwards Downed there are a few things that water gardeners still - Debris Hauled off need to watch. 316-619-6570 Keep a hole in the ice on your pond to release toxic gases from decaying matter. I use a small water pump to churn the surface or an air pump with an aquarium air stone. A stock tank heater works wells, too, but watch it for corrosion. One member reports that she is worried about curious fish burning themselves on the heating elements. I wouldn’t worry. The element shouldn’t get hot enough to burn a fish.

I recently read an article in the Koi Club’s newsletter talking about salt in cold water. If you add salt to the pond to protect against parasites, you should replace the salt water with fresh water before winter. Salt changes the density of the water and can allow it to get colder. Colder temperatures can be detrimental to fish. This is a tip for next year. I would not do a water ANDRLA`S replacement now – too stressful on the fish. LANDSCAPING SUPPLIES Wichita’s Largest Supplier of Decorative Last month I reported that my new net was Rock ● Decorative Rock ● Top Soil ● Ornamental Concrete working well. Shortly after I wrote that, a light ● Driveway Rock ● Fill Dirt ● Flat Stone snow pulled loose most of the fasteners, and I had ● Boulders ● Sand ● Landscaping Products the net in the water. Thanks to great friends, it is now repaired. But the recent storm has caused the Delivery Available - We net to sag again. Be sure to shake as much ice and snow from the nets as you can. Once you get past Load Pick-Ups blowing leaves, consider removing it. 1501 W. 55th St. So. Phone: (316) 522-0634 10% DISCOUNT TO MEMBERS So while you are cocooning indoors, think about creating a water feature inside. Many years ago, I was impressed by a member who brought in some greenery and house plants and set up a nativity scene next to a small pond indoors. It was very Christmassy and added humidity to the dry winter air. The “pond” was nothing more than a shallow plastic tub, but it was neat.

I hope you all have a safe winter holiday and a happy new year.

FISH TALES by Susan Kandt

THE MAN WITH PLUCK

Pluck. It’s one of those elusive qualities.

Not everybody has it. Not everybody, sad to say, even WANTS to have it. It’s a word you don’t hear much anymore. In fact, it’s a word that many of you young whippersnappers out there under the age of...oh, say 50 or so may never have heard used.

Which is an aching pity. Because of all the traits that personified young America, of all the characteristics that enabled a rag-rag bunch of rebels to stand up back in the 18th century and utter the 18th-century equivalent of “let’s roll” or “git ‘er done,” it’s probably the one American character trait that did indeed get it done.

Whether it was bravely standing up to an organized British army, busting sod, or carving towns and cities out of an oftentimes hostile environment, it was the piece of the American soul that caused a new, fledgling nation to rise up and become the most powerful voice on the planet. Whatever you may think of young America’s policy of “manifest destiny” (and many of us struggle with that particular part of our history), you can’t get around the fact that it was a bodacious bit of mojo that created what we take for granted today.

But...well, like I said, you don’t hear the word used much these days. The dictionary (once you get past that nasty verb form having to do with chickens and geese) defines it as “a dogged determination.” It’s that quality that makes you see a seemingly unsolvable problem, put your hands on your hips, tilt your head a bit to get some perspective, and say, “Hey, I know how we can do this.” It’s a quality our grandfathers had, and it’s one we’d all be better folks for having more of.

It’s the quality that makes some of us look at a rock that’s too big to carry and then say, “Yeah, I can carry that rock.” This is the sort of pluck Jim Bean had.

Jim, it seems, was always “carrying rocks” of one sort or another. He was, you see, a guy who hated to sit still. As a young man who was small in stature but with energy to burn, he made the most of his lightweight size by excelling in running. In high school, he set records and earned a four-year track scholarship to the University of Arkansas. He followed a stint in the U.S. Army Signal Corp. with a 55- year career with The Prudential, earning the respect and loyalty of his clients down through those years with his trademark determination to serve the interests of those who trusted and counted on him. Coincidentally, his “career” as a husband spanned 55 years, also. His wife Dolores, no bigger than a hiccup herself, joined her own considerable pluck with Jim’s and, between the two of them, they managed to build two beautiful custom homes filled with historical touches and a yard to die for.

They came to the KPS after the other water garden club in town folded. From the first day they joined, they didn’t sit idle. Active, outstanding workers, they never failed to show up when it was time to put a garden show exhibit together. And they were usually there to help take it down when all the hoopla was over, too. I’ll never forget seeing Jim once, bent with age and suffering from what I later learned was a painful case of “hammer toes,” happily manning his place in “the rock assembly line” for the building of that year’s show pond. And I saw him do this year after year. Never content to volunteer for the easier tasks was our Jim. Oh no, he wanted to carry ROCKS. Big ones, little ones...it didn’t matter. Just give him some rocks to carry and the man was a contented soul.

He and Dolores hesitantly asked for help one year in rebuilding the stream in their yard. Now mind you, they didn’t want us to DO it for them. They just wanted a little advice and some helpful suggestions. The major part of the work they had already done and were perfectly happy to finish. They just needed, well, a little assistance. While we labored, Dolores pointed out the garage where she and Jim had hung on, quite literally, for dear life during the 1991 tornado. She showed us with pride the ponds, the grape vine pergola, the patio complete with fire pit, the berm, and the walk-through trellis spilling over with climbing blackberries...all projects that Jim had designed and built. This little guy not only had pluck. He had stamina to spare!

But even pluck and stamina of the Jim Bean variety can’t last forever, and our friend Jim quietly passed away on December 14th. I know a lot of you newer KPS members may not have known Jim. Maybe you noticed him at the meetings. He was always on the run, even if he was just carrying his dinner from table to lawn chair. Dolores says that, because he was so stooped, he had to run to keep from falling over. But I prefer to think he just...well, had places to go and things to do and couldn’t be bothered with walking. He was perpetually a man with a mission. After all, there were always rocks that needed moving from here to there.

We’ll all miss Jim...at meetings, at garden shows, and wherever there’s work to be done. This country and the world is the poorer for the loss of men like Jim Bean. But wherever he is now, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he’s carrying his share of the load.

Maybe we could all use a little more of that pluck.

Water Lily Puzzle I received this link from a member. Try it. It’s fun. I solved it in 13 minutes. See if you can do better.

http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/2007-12-26-BE250580327C

Enjoy!

Kansas Pond Society 5615 N. Sullivan Wichita, KS 67204