met with my Monday group in the morning via Zoom… I set up a space in the living room for the laptop so others could see the fish, but they weren’t visible, lol…
during Covid we met via Zoom, so we have been happy to have access to it again as the group has been dealing with poor health and we don’t like to miss our time together…
hopefully everyone will be feeling better soon so that we can get back to meeting in person…
later in the day I used the selfie stick to take a photo of me reading in the sun… there hasn’t been much of it shining over the last few weeks…
I had tried to get it to work yesterday, without success… after going online and doing a bit of research, I figured it out, so today it took the photo easily;-)…
Saturday, late in the afternoon, after breaking the ice on the pond, we caught twenty-one of the goldfish…
the pond water was filled with leaves and was rather brown and murky…
it was quite the job as, at one point, my grandson went into it barefoot with his pants rolled up to cut down the water lilies and grasses (I think it was about -12°C in the air)…
but that really helped catch a bunch of them that had been hiding under the lily leaves… they were moving slower in the cold, but still snuck out of the net… also, some of the catching was in the dark, lol…
then they sat in pails in the house for hours before getting moved into the three tanks…
we were careful to be sure to keep size and numbers similar in the tanks so that there is sufficient space for all of them…
we thought we had them all, but on Sunday we discovered five more, woohoo…
now, the pumps have been removed from the pond, and it is apparently going into the winter with water in it, lol…
when we were in the garden on Sunday, we removed a ton of leaves from the pond… always makes me think of the lovely neighbours we have had over the years, being as how the tree that sheds those leaves is located in their yard, lol…
there were still numerous ones left, but we were able to dig down past them and catch three fish to bring into the house…
I wanted to do a bit of a test in the biggest tank to be sure that the water was safe for them…
after they acclimatized to the house temperature they made it into their condo…
for the last few weeks I’ve been working on getting the condos (fish tanks), ready for the move from garden to house…
when the fish moved outdoors in the spring, I didn’t clean up the tanks, sigh…
so, it started with cleaning the tank that held the plants last winter… I’ve decided to use it for fish, as the fish were getting a bit crowded in the two tanks…
got it cleaned and then a few days went by before I faced the two big tanks…
had to use the wetvac to remove all the water from the big tanks and dump it down the toilet in small batches… that took quite a bit of time and effort…
next I had to scrub them both down… then I brought in the hose and filled all three tanks up… another slow process…
I had to purchase a pump for the newest tank… as I hooked them up, the biggest pump would not work…
finally, after numerous attempts, it started working and now all three tanks are running and cleaning the water…
it will be weeks before the fish move in, but the tanks will be ready for them…
the funniest thing is realizing how much noise they make, after being silent all summer…
the current iteration of the pond is ten years old…
hard to believe that much time has passed…
this is how it looked just as it was completed…
after it was finished, they had to come back and deal with leaking and runoff…nearly all of the plants have changed over time, lol… and I have changed the slate around the edge of the pond for large river rocks…
it still loses water when the waterfall is running and this year I have left if off for a good portion of the time… I also think the fish are out and about more when it isn’t running, lol… I do have a bubbler going all the time…
this year the water lilies are extremely happy… they continue to produce blooms daily, it is both amazing and delightful…
today, I turned the waterfall on and realized that I’d been missing it, and how well it dilutes other sounds in the neighbourhood…
visited the cacao trees and took a few photos for my daughter, lol…
had a good time watching the koi and even got a few reasonable shots;-)…
met my buddies for lunch at Gather Craft Kitchen & Bar and it was tasty, as always… our server, Camille, had served us on Friday when we were there last and remembered me;-)… she did a great job to ensure our meal and time there went well…
after lunch I spent a bit more time with the fish;-)… and then sat and wrote this blog as the water fell in front of me;-)…