Monday, January 19, 2009

I found Nemo!

In our neglected pond! In October we had a heat wave, which turned the water of the pond tepid. The heat made the algae I had been trying to fight off flourish. The three goldfish in there vanished that day, and I spent at least a week searching for them in murky water. They stopped coming up for food, and I gave them up for dead.

Time passed. The chaos of the end of the school year and Christmas took centre stage, and I left the pond to clean out when I got a little less busy. It would be a biggish job, as I had to dig it deeper and larger to keep the water cooler for the inhabitants. This morning I was looking at the now black with algae water, and figured it was time I bit the bullet. I began scooping water from the pond and tipping it on thirsty plants. As I filled the bucket I caught a glimpse of a bright orange leaf. I dumped the bucket on the garden bed, only to see a very upset goldfish flipping around on the mulch! I grabbed him and threw him back in the pond, and finished the emptying much more carefully after that.

He's currently residing in a bucket, while he waits for the freshened and extended pond water to settle down. The kids are excited to see him. Naturally he is now called Nemo 'coz we found him!' He has to be the reason the icky pond never had any mosquito larvae, which was the main concern I had been keeping an eye on.

2 comments:

Kristin said...

How cool...that is one tough goldfish.

Emma said...

He sure is!