Fall and Winter

My daughter has a litter and needs owneres...hint hint... :) I'll look for a picture to post.

I have had Siamese cats for over 50 years.At one point I raised them.I always had two in the past but when the last of my pairs passed on my daughter gave me a bluepoint...willow.Before the cats were so busy loving each other and the children that they neglected me.Willow bonded with me as the children were all grown up and on their own.He is my constant companion.He is the smartest one I've ever had.I just say show me and he goes to the door or his food dish or even the catnip drawer.JOY

I do have to admit that I am a cat person. I have had siamese, calico, a Russian Blue (my dearest and favorite.) He is huge and so huggable. He had been a rescue cat with part of an ear and the end of his tail missing. And he was known to miss a stair and slam into the stair riser next up. What a hoot. Damien used to pitch him from the deck into the 3' feet of snow in the back yard. Then one day Jack vomited on his side of the bed and the cat abuse stopped. Damien really loved Jack, just has a perverted way of showing it. I have pictures of him laying in bed reading the paper with Jack's head on his bicep sound asleep. But he became allergic and refused shots. Now we have Woodrow (Woody) renamed from Coco by Damien. I keep calling him a her as I had a female hedgehog named Coco. When I fire up the other computer I will load up a picture. All your cats are so darling I could just cuddle them all up.

I still have some fish to relocate into the deep pond for the winter.
Talking about pets, Ric and I are going to look at a mixed terrier tomorrow.

Since you all are talking about kitty's..found this pic the other day to share.I think it is photo-shopped..but darling anyway.

Bea -

so cute. I have long haired blue persian mix. This baby reminds me of her.

I agree about the photoshop, but still adorable. Puppy isn't so adorable right now. Peed on the carpet. I banished him to his cage. Damien can only take so much of that. I think I have to get spray as he peed right by the spot he peed in when he arrived yesterday. I think I read that once they do that, they will always go back to the same spot. :( Worse than a baby.

A terrier mix was another breed we were looking at. Really cute.

Cat's are soooooo much easier......and at least as adorable..

I love cats but my allergies are just too bad with cats in the house. When our last two died I swore that I wouldn't get another one. It is hard though they are so nice and there are so many in need of homes.

The daughter of a friend was wildly allergic to cats and went to an accupuncturist. One treatment and she was cured. Went and got two cats with no side affects at all. I couldn't talk my husband into doing it.

That is interesting that she was cured by an accupuncturist. My daughter has appled for a receptionist job at an accupuncture office . I hope she gets it and receives a family discount. I would love to try accupuncture for many things. I would love to get a cat or at least baby sit my grand kitty more often, but her last visit I was miserable. Here is Feisty making herself at home while staying with me this summer.

Cats are the best! I can't help how I feel. I just dearly love them. My daughter has two rescued cats so I can get my 'cat fix' as she calls it at her house or we go to PetSmart and visit their cats.

Here is Woody. You can see a Winnie The Pooh to the right. He pulls on it when he goes to bed and it plays the "Winnie the Pooh" Song.

This message was edited Dec 2, 2011 3:49 PM

Well, it's been 35 degrees here and the pond top is very slushy. I went to check and found a gold fish on the surface by the deicer. Dead I presume. Maybe got caught in the ice and froze. Others are swimming around on the bottom. Saw the kohaku in the shallow end then went to check on the deep end and when I got back he had moves so obviously he is alive. Hope that one gold fish wasn't looking for oxygen. If any more turn up I will have to assume that is the case and start some aeration. The water is being moved around down there and there is a lot of open ice so I would hope they are getting enough. They shouldn't need a lot this time of year I would think.

Today was bright and sunny.The nights have been cold enough for ice to form on the pond so I decided to put the pond warmers in.The pond was calm and the reflection was lovely.I wanted to get pictures of the fish but this is what I got

I persisted but the fish spooked every time I approached the pond so finally I stayed on the porch and used the zoom.I'm sure the fish thought it was spring the way they were zooming around.I even fed them which I haven't done since September and they ate the food.

This was my last picture after the food.This was taken from the porch.

Beautiful pictures, especially the first one. 25F here with a slight wind. Brrrr. Doesn't take much breeze to chill it right down.

Oh, I see the fishies.....

Well, kit's been 44F with chinooks. The pond has big open water spots. I see my koi and gold fish swimming around down there. More active than I would have thought. They all look good though. It is reassuring to see them, especially the bigger guys. Didn't see Homer, the biggest and oldest but he is a strange sort of color and he blends in and is hard to see normally anyway. He was probably under the ice hiding away from the open water. I netted the gold fish that was dead on top of the ice. I am assuming he jumped and didn't make it back into the pond. I looked him over and he looked clean with no sign of bacteria or anything.

Today the temperature is 15C ...just like spring.I went out and unplugged the pond heaters.I went for a walk with just a light jacket.....would have gone farther but if I overdo it I get terrible cramps in my feet and legs at night.So much for the Golden Years!!JOY

Joy - I love your sense of humor.

I am thinking that in the next week or so, we will have to shut down and start to bring in the pumps. Temps are supposed to be in just the high 30's at the end of this week.

We are back to the upper 20's but even though there is a skim of ice on the pond I can still see my fish. Wish it would stay that way all winter. But even it it weren't covered in snow (which it inevitably will be) the ice ceases to be clear.

Went out and the dog followed me. He went onto the ice and I was so worried he would approach the holes where the ice is thinner. He may only weight 5-6 pounds but it might be enough to break the ice. I don't think I could make myself plunge into the pond even for him. Been there, done that. I figured I should be the long handled net just in case. He skittered around a bit and I think he decided he didn't like it.

Finally gave in and am off to see the doctor to get a "Z" Pack to try to break this durned head thing. I am hoping that the weather will hold cold to take the glare off the ice on the streets in the neighborhood so Woody and I can go back to walks. Even with ice cleats on I am afraid of the glare ice and of falling. As Joy says, the old bones are not so resilient as they once were. Christ may have made it through life with no broken bones, but I don't have the edge He did. lol.

We haven't pulled any pumps yet, biofilters or anything yet. DH said the latest we have gone in doing this is 12/10. It looks like it might be around that date again for us.

Feel better soon, Mary.

28 deg here and ice beginning to form on the ponds edge. May have to get out the de-icer today as no rain is expected for rest of the week so the temps will remain low. Still have piles of leaves waiting to be moved, but it is to dang cold! Pick up by city not until after Christmas...so I have time.

Love to see your pond and fish Carolyn. They are so big. I do wish my pond was bigger. Maybe someday if we move and I am not too old. I don't think we will ever enlarge this one again.

Mary

Thanks - I am really missing being outside and sitting by the pond.

Bea - I think you are colder than we are right now. I believe that is supposed to change very quickly.

they are all begging for food...poor starving babies. I figure this is a summer picture though. They are at least as big as the ones I saw in the lake by the budhhist temple in Hawaii. Just not as many. They were in huge snarls of fish, one atop the other, trying to get food being thrown into the pond. I suspect they are well fed by tourists who buy kibbly stuff to feed them, not the needy fish they look like

Mary

Yes, this is a summer picture. I do miss feeding them.

How big are the koi at the temple? I know back in September of 2009, we measured all the fish and my kohaku was 23.5 inches then and he is my largest fish. My guess is he is between 24-26" as I know that koi do their fastest growing in the first couple of years of their lives and then they slow down.

I was outside earlier and I did check the air temps - even though it is rainy and miserable, we are still in the upper 40's. Not sure where my water temps are at this point.

I cannot imagine having a 24" fish in my pond. The ones at the temple, if I remember correctly, were (at the biggest) around 24-36" and very big around. Your pond is 5000gal and aboutg 18x27?

Yes, my pond is just under 5000 gallons and it is 13x27, but this also includes my bogs. We have on the one end 4 ft deep and on the shallower end 3 1/2 feet deep. This is our 3rd pond, with each time we put a new pond in - we did go bigger. We are at a point where we cannot get any bigger as my backyard will not allow us to go any bigger. Perhaps the next house.

Not bad for remembering the last time we 'talked' about your dimensions. So what about the pond exclusive of the bogs?

Oh, and is it a gradual slope from 4' to 3.5', or is there a distinct step up? If so, what are the dimensions of the 4' versus the 3.5'? I am trying to get a feel for the size that would accomodate fish your sizes. There may be some wiggle room next spring when (hopefully) they come to fix my pond. Even a few feet wider say at the shallow end would make a difference.

I have to ask DH each time, because I cannot remember the width and lenght of the pond. I believe without the bogs, he said it was 11x25 - not positive - I would have to ask him and he is sleeping (but it 4:30 am here).

The depth difference is a gradual difference. Truthfully, I am not sure whether the size of the pond has anything to do with the size of the fish. I have read that it is that way and I have read that it is not that way and the fish will grow to their size.

I do know the kohaku is not the oldest fish in the pond, yet he is the biggest.

We also have the waterlilies sitting on the bottom of the shallower end of the pond. We did have the plastic cubes in the shallower end to keep the wl's at the correct height, but we had a fish get caught between the cubes. After that, we never worried about the correct height for the wl's again.

Yeah. I can see that the health of the fish outweighs the health of the wl's. Sorry to be pesky. I was just really curious about the differences in habitat. And of course, the differences in weather cannot be ignored. that cannot be replicated here, obviously. Thanks for your patient answers.

Mary

No worries - I enjoy the dialogue - ask me anything - although some things are probably better kept to dmails ^_^

I always felt my fish looked bigger in the spring at start up then when we shut down in the fall. I am of the thinking they are growing during the winter, but I am not positive of that either.

Carolyn I agree that the fish appear to grow in the winter although I don`t feed them.It always surprises me.Mrs. raccoon thinks they are a good meal when they get big. She has a big appetite when she is feeding her babies.She sometimes get my biggest fish. JOY

I don't know. I really was amazed at the size of my fish this spring. Could be just the delight at seeing them all of a sudden after such a long winter (silly, really -- winters are really about the same length - a week or so isn't that signifigant.) But it did appear to me that they were bigger. Especially ones that were just small gold fish in the fall. Their growth was more obvious. I guess my desire for a bigger pond, not necessarily deeper (I have a sufficiently deep end for winter safety) but so they have more area to roam around and just lazily swim. It isn't too bad now, but I keep looking at your big guys and trying to picture them in my pond. If they did laps from end to end, they could only manage about three or four good 'breast strokes' and they would have to turn around. :) Guess they would have to do laps around the perimeter. It is maybe 14' at the widest and about 20' at the longest. So it isn't too small. Maybe yours, with those neat bogs and all your greenery around the edges just sort of makes it look even bigger. I am still contending with the durned rock issue. I know you must have rock edges but they are so well hidden for the most part that they aren't obvious.

Oh Joy!! How awful. I think I would be compelled to live trap the little critter and transport her to a new home --- far far from my fish. Your pond really doesn't have much protection for the fish. We have no predators except cats and squirrels. I see cat tracks in the snow sometimes -- perhaps they can smell the fish or maybe they are just drinking from the pond while it is still liquid. But they can't get to the fish. And even if a moose invaded the back yard, they certainly have no interest in fish. About all they could do is break a leg if they fall through the ice --- hmmm, moose burgher, moose roast, moose steak.... NO, NO. Very illegal -- course, who would know. I could bribe the neighbors on both sides with meat, and hang the rack on my shed...

Joy,

If you are seeing the same things that I am seeing regarding fish growth in the winter. I am thinking if both are of the same line of thinking, then it must be that the fish are growing during the winter as well as the summer. No wonder their little immunities are so depleted at the end of the winter - no food and they are growing as well. Poor babies.

Mary -

Do you have eagles? I know we do - we have never been visited by the hawks and eagles (knock wood), but I would think they would prey on the koi.