Water Gardening: New member, 1 by rutholive

rutholive wrote:
Has been very interesting reading all your posts of lily or fish ponds. You all are doing great and will really enjoy your water features. I have been a widow for 12 years. My husband and I had 80 acres of apple orchard which we had sold a few years before just keeping the house in northwest edge of orchard. I sold the house after he died and bought this 5 1/2 acres space, nothing but sagebrush and grass. My daughter wanted to know why i wanted to homestead at my age, that was 11 years ago, and I am now 80 yrs. But now when the grown kids see my garden spot they agree it was right thing for me to do.

The next year the fellow who works for me when he has the time and I have the money, and has for more than 15 years, he and I started building the two ponds. The larger one is about 10 x 12 ft, and 30inches deep at deepest spot., with shelves around the edges. The smaller pond is about 5 feet away and slightly higher with a tiny trickle of water going under the bridge. Have a recirculating pump in each pond. The large pond has probably 35 goldfish and 1 Koi that I paid $20.00 for, three years ago. It is now about 12 inches or so and gets along nicely with the goldfish. I feed maybe every third day. and not in winter. The smaller pond is for the frogs, toads, and tadpoles. However someway I guess it is a goldfish, (hasn't turned gold yet tho) got into the smaller pond, it is about 5", I don't know how it could possibly have gotten into the upper pond, never happened before.

I will post a couple of photos of my ponds.

Donna