"A Million Little Kisses"

Our pond was cleaned out yesterday by the hard-working folks at KneeDeepPonds.com. They drained the pond, cleared out the leaves, pressure washed all the algae from the rocks, and made sure all the equipment was working correctly. The good news is that the pond is ready for action; the bad news is that they only found three fish still alive out of the nine we had last fall. This poor survival rate surprised us. We had found three dead fish recently, had seen three live fish in the past week, but had hoped the other three would be found when the pond was drained.

Well, every cloud has a silver lining. We had been wanting to buy some of the beautiful Koi being sold at the nearby Tropic Bay Water Gardens, so once the pond cleaning was finished, Paul and I went on a Koi shopping trip. We bought four: a black and gold one which Paul named "Speedy"; an red/orange one with black spots which Paul named "Spotty"; a yellow one which I named "Daffy" (for Daffodil); and a white one with black and gold spots which I named "Jacqueline" (because she looked French and we're going to France this summer).

Paul held them in their big plastic bag on the ride home and they kept opening their mouths against the side of the bag, which Paul said felt like "a million little kisses."


The new fish swam happily around their new digs, then noticed the old fish hiding out under the fish cave and went in to check them out. I guess everyone was pretty friendly since later that night everyone was out for a fish party. The last guest will arrive later this weekend, since we're going back to Tropic Bay to buy a bigger Koi when they are on sale for the Aquatic Festival which starts Saturday.

While the pond was being cleaned out, the bridge was painted. The top is the same color as the porch deck, a deep brown, and the sides are a pretty blue. It was a challenge to pick out the right color blue, but I think it turned out just fine.

Today the weather is quite raw and breezy, so we have indoor activities on our list of things to do. But in my quick morning stroll around outside I did see that the Iris has started to bloom and the Wisteria is out, both adding a pretty shot of purple to the yard.