An Old Crock and Koi Fish

Koi Fish are so intriquing.  They are actually trainable and become quite the pet.  They get used to a routine, they know who's coming to feed them and will go to the bottom of the pool if it's someone they are unsure of....like over active children....or a heron!  In the last place my husband and I lived, we did a lot of landscaping.  It's a form of art I wish I'd discovered as a young person.....an aptitude test at school said I should be a forest ranger!  In those days nobody had heard of landscaping......at least not in my family circle! 

But I moved to Vancouver Island and with the combination of milder weather and different plants, I discovered that I love to turn my yard into a piece of art work.  Every place we've lived, we did all kinds of decorative work in the yard and mainly just maintenance in the house!  But our magnum opus was the house where we had the koi pond, stream, water fall and lots of specimin plants and hidden areas of the garden for contemplation.  When we moved from this home, we took the biggest fish, breeding stock, to a friend in the country who had a very deep pond for them to "go wild" in and meet other koi living there.  We left only the smaller ones for the new owners.  These two fish were our favorites.  The pictures do not do them justice....they were taken when were transporting them and they were in plastic tubs that were big...two fit side by side in the back of the van to give you an idea what size the fish were!

Today we don't have a pond.  My husband is happy as he worried about the pump and the water levels and all those practical things. The biggest problem was the heron.  They were hard to keep away, illegal to kill, but stole our oldest fish and a lot of his offspring.  I used to think herons were artistic looking the way they stand on one leg and are so still.  Now I see them with a target on their breast!

But as for the pond, I miss it terribly.  I miss the running water, the birds bathing in it on a hot sunny day, the pet fish and even the frogs that made it their home and sang in the evening. 

But, not to be deterred, at this house I have an old crock.  It's an antique one and rather than make sauerkraut in it, I have it on the patio with two water plants and three goldfish.  Today I have to empty it, store the plants in a safe place, and put the goldfish in a big bowl for winter.  I do this to prevent the crock freezing and breaking over winter.  The fish would be fine in our milder winters, and just go to the bottom whee there is still water rather than ice.  But the crock won't survive so I have to clean it out and bring it inside. 

So, with fish on my mind, I've added a "Feed the Fish" gadget to play with in the side column.  I found it to be fun when I tried it out so there it is for you to try as well.