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Thursday, February 16, 2012

The pond will soon be back to normal


Frau Knickerbocker is pleased with my progress. I am not so pleased but think I am probably expecting too much. Every time I get the hang of something she tells me about a new rule – and I just know there are thousands more of these waiting to ambush me.

We are however struggling along and today we took on the Perfect Tense and I was not too bad. We can now have basic conversations and she is remarkably good at not gritting her ears when I use words she has never heard pronounced that way before. 

I have been keeping an eye on the ducks and - while the pond in Stadtpark is frozen - they still have enough water to paddle about in – although it is a bit crowded when they are all in the water together.

I have wondered why it never ices over completely when it gets really cold. It is strange because the Wienfluss  - which is usually always running – froze solid on the weekend. I have not seen that before.

Is it because so may ducks are paddling about or because there is human intervention?

I have in the past seen a man breaking the edges of the ice with a stick – so that the ducks do have water to paddle about in - so maybe that’s it.

Anyway  - the ducks seem to be quite happy and are coping well. I have told them to hang on because the weather is starting to get warmer and soon they will have the pond back to its normal state.

4 comments:

  1. I hope you used the right accents when you were talking to the ducks

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  2. Yes! The motion of the ducks will put energy into the water, but I don't know how many ducks it takes. Plus some of their escaping body heat would warm the water as well.

    Here is an article that explains it:

    Mechanical Equivalent of Heat

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  3. The pond looks nice right now.

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  4. Glen: Yes - my finest Austrian-German

    esb: Thanks. The man with the stick means we need fewer ducks.

    I miss Macau: It is very popular - more ducks than I have ever seen before.

    ReplyDelete