This is pretty sad, but the highlight of my day comes each afternoon after work as Nancy and I have cocktails beside our goldfish pond. The cocktails are nice, but they aren’t the highlight. The highlight is watching our frogs and hoping they catch a bug in midair. For us, this is exciting , and yes, it’s sad. But frogs are truly amazing creatures. I think we have three now in our … [Read more...]

  Last week I found a snakeskin in our flower garden, the same garden with our small lily pond, which happens to have a baby frog. Snakes have gone for my resident frogs before, so I was concerned about the snake, not for myself, but for my frogs – I have others in our new goldfish pond. Discarded snakeskins are the result of  molting, which occurs regularly in snakes. When the old skin … [Read more...]

  Fish will come. Beautiful water lilies and hyacinths will come. Frogs will come and you can look forward to many pleasant hours sitting beside your goldfish pond. That is, if you build it. We did, obviously, and I’d like to share our experiences just in case you’d like to put in a pond in your yard. The hole is the hardest part. If you or a neighbor have a small backhoe, then you’re … [Read more...]

I put a dozen tadpoles in our little goldfish pond about eight weeks ago, hoping at least one would make it to frog-dom. One did, and there’s another tadpole soon to become a frog. There may be more, but we have so many water hyacinths, it’s hard to tell Truth be known, I wanted a frog pond all along. The goldfish just gave me an excuse. For the past several years,  we had frogs in Nancy’s … [Read more...]

I always thought goldfish were, well, gold. But since we installed our small goldfish pond, I have discovered that goldfish can come in a variety of colors - white, gold, mixed white and gold and even black colors. Our 8 original goldfish (now down to 7, the funeral service was last week) have started to reproduce in their new pond. A couple weeks back, Nancy saw several tiny, white fish, probably … [Read more...]

Our goldfish pond continues to amaze. Last week, Nancy said she saw some tiny minnows swimming in the pond. I suggested that maybe they were her little imaginary friends, like Harvey the Rabbit.  She gave me one of those looks that said, “You are treading on thin ice, buster.” And I said no more. But tiny minnows in our pond? Where did they come from, heaven? Then she called me over. … [Read more...]

  We’ve had a nighttime visitor in our little goldfish pond. The reason we know is that our after-hours “guest” has turned several water plant pots in the pond over during his visits. We also found one of our big snails laying upside down beside the pond the next morning. But he was fine when we tossed him back in the water. I have to suppose that our pond invader is and was a … [Read more...]

When we installed our small goldfish pond a month back, we had two goals. First, to give our 8 ever-growing goldfish a little more breathing room and second, I wanted a pond for a few frogs. The goldfish are loving life and  I now have a dozen bullfrog tadpole sprouting legs. The pond is already a most relaxing place to enjoy a summer evening. But there is another side benefit to our goldfish … [Read more...]

  We are loving our goldfish pond. Every afternoon that it’s decent outside, we go out to the pond, have a cocktail and watch the fish do laps. I’ve been trying to teach them to do tricks, like they do with dolphins, but so far I can’t get them to jump through any hoops. They just do laps around the pond and beg for food. One initial concern we had right after we installed the pond was … [Read more...]