[markgardner]

I'm not sure what the 'discussion' going on here is but let me explain what I've seen in the life of mud ponds since I arrived in Japan.

I arrived in Japan on 29th December, no snow on the low ground around Ojiya and when I woke up on 30th December it was raining.

Then it started to snow and snowed pretty much every day through to March.

It had snowed prior to my arrival, that I knew, in fact it started to snow 2 days after I left in November.

You can look at the earliest pics I posted and there was water/ice on mudponds, particularly if you look at sets of pics taken up at Tanaka Maruju. This came about due to earlier snows falling in the ponds and then melting.

Now, every single one of those ponds, bar one which has an overflow from a fish house, is filled with snow.

When a reasonably mild spell suddenly turns to snow and dumps 1m in a night the ponds don't have time to freeze up and have a layer of ice, they simply fill with snow and keep filling with snow.

The contours of the landscapes in the pictures covered with snow mirrors their snowless countours, everything just has an even covering. Through that they cut roads where they need to, but all around everything else is just covered in snow, one even thick blanket of snow.

I've mentioned in the blog that I'm working on the English translation of Nishikigoi Mondo. In that Fujita San states, literally, that the snow would crush the Koi kept in outdoor ponds. I questioned the translation when I was given it to read. Now I can see the winter relenting I can see that indeed, Koi left in outside ponds could be crushed by snowfall filling their ponds.

I'm just reporting what I've seen.