Our fish come out when they see my wife or I.
Empty, clean pond...
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Now to move the raised bed about two feet back away from the pond so we can install the liner. That will put s shallow channel between the pond and the bed so the bed won't drain into the pond when watered. It will also allow us to walk around that side of the pond for cleaning.
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I may end up putting a train layout around the pond. Maybe a bridge over the pond.
The temporary fish tank…
Are they litter box trained?(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
They are. I’m not.
The liner is in, it's refilled, the filters are running, and the fish and plants are back in. Still have to finish the edging, and repot the one bunch of water irises.
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Nice. Them little buggers should be happy now.
Thought we might have a problem this morning. Went out early and there was not a fish to be seen in the pond. I thought “uh-oh, did the raccoons find them that quick?” But when it got a little lighter, they started emerging from the hide boxes we put in the pond. One of the hiding places is a terra-cotta chimenea with no chimney. It forms a natural cave for the fish, and has a layer of small shiny stones and marble in it. This morning several of the larger fish are going in and out of it. They are rearranging the stones. Some of the stones are being carried out of the cave and dropped.
Its their home, so they are just rearranging the furniture.
Sometimes when I go out to my pond, there isn’t a fish to be seen. Its amazing how them suckers can hide.
As soon as we moved our water lilies back into the big pond, they went nuts. They are exploding new pads, and started blooming a few days ago.
This one is called Pink Grapefruit. We also have one called Texas Dawn. We have a few other varieties, but I'm not sure what they're called.
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The Pink Grapefruit next to the severely restricted water irises...
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Then they must be happy.
Very nice and welcoming, hopefully not to predators. I didn’t have Koi in my pond, but 2 types of goldfish, fantails and the regular dime-a-dozen kind. We put in some decorative floating flowers, like water lettuce, and the little ba***rds ate the roots, so all we had was floating greenery.
Keeping pond fish in this area is a waste of time…we get a big Heron floating around here looking for the fish from time to time…
It sits on the roof of the house opposite me surveying the area for its next meal.!
Why people don’t cover the pond with a wire net I don’t know… Make it domed shape with some 1/4 inch diam rebar to support the net!
Our dragonflies have returned…
I have a small pond, but every year I get a dragon fly. This year’s specimen is all black, and doesn’t really care if I am there. A few years back, I had one that had blue and green stripes on its upper body, and that one was very territorial. It kept trying to scare me away from the pond. It would hover a couple of feet in front of my face and try and stare me down. A few years before that one, there was a 3 winged dragonfly that called my pond home. It flew just fine, despite its missing one wing. Wildlife can be quite entertaining sometimes.
Night time is interesting at the pond. You sit in the dark and wait, and when your eyes adjust, you realize the bats are swarming all around you scooping up the insects that gather over the pond.
Bats! Last fall I had to bring in the hummingbird feeder because bats drained it overnight! Heavier they could tip it and drink.
We have some LARGE Bull Frogs … two in our big pond and one in the railroads pond… usually there are of average size … I do believe they just wintered over and never left …
Gee, I had frog once, for a day. I guess it wasn’t happy being the biggest (read only) frog in a little pond, and it moved on.