Spring Color and update

It was a beautiful weekend here in San Antonio. We had some much needed rain last week and now everything is green and in bloom. I mowed the lawn and trimmed some of my trees back. Looking around the yard I realized that I had several flowers in bloom. I took a few pictures of the color that is starting to show. It wont be too long before color is throughout all of the front beds. The Koi pond is looking good as well. The lotus has several shoots coming up and the water lilies are looking good as well. I can't wait for them to flower. I have had water lilies before but never had any blooms. If you look closely at the pond picture you can see the Koi by the water feature. I still have 2 Koi and about 8 gold fish. I still can't get them to come when I feed them. One day. I still have a vacancy in the Owl House. After all the work that I put into it,I will be disappointed if it stays vacant. I have read that it can take a while for the owls to find it. Then I was thinking, if I bait it with corn I can get a squirrel family to move in. This way when the owls find it, the pantry is full! Just a thought.

Plants and fish at last

I went to Iris's house this morning and got my fish. She also had some plants for the pond as well. I don't know the names of all of them but I have some white and yellow lilies. The white ring that is on the right side of the pond is a lotus. What you don't see is the fish that i added. I have 2 koi and about 10 small gold fish. The water is a little cloudy right now because of the plants. It will clear up soon and I will see if I can get some pictures of the fish. I was going to take down the electric fence but I can see where something has been digging around the pond in the soft dirt. It may just be a squirrel or it could be my friendly neighborhood raccoon. The fence is going to stay up for a while longer.

Mass Killing

Pardon me while I wipe away the tears....When I got home after work today I saw that my Koi was up side down in the pond. Upon closer inspection I noticed that all of my small minnows were dead as well. What could have caused this I wondered? Did someone poison my fish? Who would have done such a thing? Then I saw the cause of death......ELECTROCUTION!!!! The hot wire that runs arround the pond broke and the end was in the pond. I have had that Koi for 3 years. He was 13 inches long and was just starting to come over to the edge for hand feeding. I will winter the pond and start fresh this spring with new plants and fish. Maybe I will try a different type of fence to keep out the wildlife.

Well, this is my first attempt at a blog. I saw Donnie's pond on Brenda's blog and I got pond envy. My pond was an experiment to see if I liked having a pond and how muck work was involved in taking care of it. As it turns out it is not much work and the water sounds right outside the window is very relaxing. I had three koi in my pond but the raccoons have it down to just one. What you do not see in the picture is the electric fence that runs around the pond to keep unwanted fishermen out. I also have several rescue fish in the pond. Last year with all the rain we had the low water areas in the park had small fish in them. As the water started to evaporate the fish were in danger of being mud puppies. Christopher and I went out to those low water areas armed with a small net and a Bill Miller tea bucket and gathered up as many as we could and now they keep my lone koi company. I also have a perch in the pond. I can only assume that one of the small minnows that we rescued was actually a small perch. He is now as big as my hand and he is trained to come up for food. I still haven't trained the koi to come up for food. He is probably traumatized the the raccoon attacks.