Summer amusement

A week or so ago, one of my sons arrived to help me with my garden. He brought with him a pail that is often used for live bait - old-looking. I found out it contained four fish - for my pond, to join the ones that were already in the pond. The bait tin was indeed old, belonging originally to the mother of the woman who works with my son in one of his businesses, I'd love to know its history.

Four years ago I finally got around to digging out the mess left behind by the people who had put water and hydro out to the drive shed when I moved up here in 2001. It was my fault for not asking the fellows to place the top soil on one side and the red clay on the other - nonetheless, nothing much grew along the trench line so I decided to fulfil a lifelong dream...a pond in my backyard (that and a pony in my backyard were my two big childhood wishes). So periodically over the years I dug a bit more of a hole in the ground. Sometimes some local kids helped me. To make a long story short, it finally was completed and lined. Water, plants and (three years ago) fish were installed.

Last fall the pond sprang a leak... so I drained it and put the fish into a horse watering trough that I'd sold to a neighbouring farmer but borrowed back for the winter. They had suddenly multiplied last summer much to my surprise from seven to 15...(busy little critters weren't they?) 

So this spring, my sons came up, helped me with a new neoprene liner I couldn't have managed myself, reinstalled rocks, fish, and frogs eventually have returned. Then the four newcomers joined the school. They were as large as the largest of mine... originally feeder fish from a pet store, bred to be bait or food for flesh eating fish that are pets such as piranhas. Some of these - the four newcomers and my own originals - had grown from two-inch long babies to six inch beauties.


There colours are very interesting, orange and white, multicoloured with white or orange fins, and they're fun to watch, very calming actually as they search for food in the pond. So this morning I made a short video of the fish - turning off the fountain in the centre. I posted it here, for your enjoyment and also for the enjoyment of the couple whose grandkids can know that their fish did indeed go to a lady who lives in the country and they are quite happy in their new home. 

The pond