A Simple But somehow Complicated Fish Pond

I figured I could handle installing and caring for a little fish pond since hey, I raised six kids and we all survived, and that had to be harder.

You buy the plastic form, find a willing person to dig in into place, fill'er up and toss in the fish. right?

Well, yes, but that's the easy part.

I found my willing digger and the form went in. Come to think of it, that was the last time I ever clearly saw the bottom.

I found the fish at the pet store, stored in a tank in a back room for 29 cents each. Dear mother in heaven, what could they possibly be sold for besides residing in a pond? Anyway I broke the bank and bought six.

They settled in nicely and grew to three and four times their original size and I was so proud.

Then I got the idea that it would look good, in fact brilliant, to pile rocks upon rocks around the pond and then I could play with the idea of waterfalls here and there.

I scouted nearby building sites and loaded the car several times over with heavy but promising rocks, brought them home, unloaded then one at a time from the car parked in front, carted them along the goat path to the back deck, up two steps, way down to the end, down two steps, drop the rock and go back for the next. You get the idea, this was a labor of love.

And here it is, ready to face its first winter, looking beautiful. Look at those waterfalls, two of them.

Once I got some advice from pond people about over-wintering the fish, we did well right up to the moment the snow melted and the ice pushed and shoved every rock out of place, mostly right into the pond. It wasn't a pretty sight.


It took a while to pull away the debris and shovel out the mudslides.

Now I am so much sadder and wiser and the stones are arranged with a view to keeping them securely in place and you can forget those waterfalls--you want to see that then hike to Niagara Falls. They have plenty and god knows the rocks fall into the water there also.

I had almost learned my lesson but Attic boy is here and he did one more little thing for me.

I had lugged home an eighty-pound mirror from Habitat for Humanity and he managed to install it over the pond on top of an existing mirror without lasting damage to the fish, the pond or our relationship.

Rock on Attic boy and on to the next brilliant idea.

Attic Boy is Back

Life was quieter when Attic Boy departed for India and Thailand but when he finally decided he needed a place to wash his clothes and catch up on his blogs, he returned.

He doesn't exactly have one home. There's Vancouver where two of his brothers live; then there are various friendly ex wives in Alberta and now we come to Waterloo, where he has a sister and two brothers. And me, his mom.

He's a carpenter and a few visits back he reluctantly invaded my attic goaded on by his sister, and he wired three rooms for center ceiling lights.



This is my favorite shot:



Funny thing, it's time to pick up more work to save for the next trip, but his sister managed to grab him by the scruff-of-the neck and he's busy building her a swishy laundry room. Swishy in as much as she will no longer have to climb over boxes of hard-to-store junk to reach the washer and now the dryer is hooked up to an outside vent instead of using that strange pail of water gizmo. Oh yes, and now she has a laundry tub.

This is our strategy for keeping him here with us as long as we can.

We always get into mischief when A.B. comes to town and this time we are trying to figure out how and where to buy a three-family property for us all to be close together and carry on with our fanciful plans.

Welcome back Stevie.