The Ponds

As you all know, I haven't had a lot of luck with fish lately. You might remember the incident last year where someone poisoned my pond by pouring gasoline in it. The police did a thorough search and questioned most of the neighbors-- but we never found the culprit.

Even though I changed the water and cleaned the pond, the next round of fish died within a couple of days, as did the next round and the round after that! The last mass mortality occurred while we were in Hilton Head, the beginning of August. We had a friend take care of the pond and when we came home, all of the fish that had survived for a few weeks were dead. We didn't know if she had overfed them, or maybe it was just the damned gas in the water that did them. After scooping all of the corpses out with my little net, I vowed that there would be no more fish in the pond. I think I even blogged about it and renamed it a water garden.

And so it was-- we gave up on our nightly ritual of feeding the fish at sunset. We filled the pond with plants-- plants that began to multiply quickly. I was farming plants out to every pond owner that I knew. I wasn't happy. I wanted there to be life in the pond. A couple of times, we would get a frog for a few days. Frogs are shy and always hide. I would sneak out to the pond a few times a day- hoping to catch a glimpse of the frogs. A couple of times I caught them sitting on the lilly pads, but most often they would jump when they sensed me approaching. All I would see was a leg, or a cloud of dirt where they disturbed the pond bed. I didn't change the water, I didn't throw out any food. One by one the frogs disappeared-- victims of the cats next door. When the last frog was gone, I decided once again to try to get some fish to live in the pond. I bought a bag full of feeder goldfish. I got a dozen or so for less than $2. While we were floating the bag in the water (you have to do this so the fish get acclimated to the new temperature), we saw the bag move a couple of times. I figured it was either the fish in the bag causing this, or maybe there was still a frog in that pond. We released the fish after a while and they all began to spread out-- checking out their new digs.

All of a sudden, a big white koi appeared out of nowhere. Michael was like "that wasn't in the bag!". And he was right! Somehow this koi had survived what all of the other fish hadn't. This fish has been in the pond for months-- with no food and no attention whatsoever! How cool is that?

We're on Day 2 now with the new fish. Everyone is surviving and the white koi comes to the surface often. Where was he all of that time, and why didn't we see him until the new fish arrived?

I'm feeling like the pond drama that I've been suffering for a year now is finally over. Thank God!