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Went outside for the first time in a couple of weeks. I’d been trying to take Casper out for a while every morning. It’s usually cool enough to be nice for a couple of hours in the morning. But it’s heated up and gotten really humid for the past couple of weeks so I haven’t gone out. Casper’s been mad at me. He loves his morning out in the garden. As do I. So this morning we sat outside and enjoyed the butterfly parade. Casper enjoyed my orchids.

I got some new fish for the pond recently. I’ve had one for several years and think she’s been lonely, judging by the eggs she’s been laying. I had one fish for a long time before. I bought several at once and then all of them died but the one. This time I decided I quarantine them for a couple of days before I put them in the pond. This time everyone seems to be doing OK. I named them before I got them home; I don’t know why. Blanche, Lucy and Coppertop. I’ve had the other fish for 3 years and never called it anything but fish. At first the newcomers hid from Fish. No wonder, she’s 3 times the size of the others. But as of now they’re schooling around the pot, acting like fish. So far so good.

Animal depredations

I was reading today in It’s Not Work, It’s Gardening’s blog about issues with wildlife. It reminded me of the issues we have with our yard.

We have our own squirrel issues. It does not, thus far, bother with the bird feeders. We only put thistle seed out and I don’t know if they’re worth the effort. It has, however, been systematically raiding my macadamia nut tree.

My husband thinks I should just let it be, but I don’t think he knows that it will strip the tree before any of them are ripe.

I also have problems with a fertilizer eater, except it’s not wildlife. Spud, my red-footed tortoise (captive bred) thinks that my organic fertilizer is tortoise candy and will eat any I put around the plants underneath the compost in the fall. He also has a taste for my sneakers.

There are occasional forays by racoons, but they mostly eat the fish out of the pond. I stopped buying expensive koi and started buy feeder goldfish at a twenty five cents each. Much more economical and I don’t end up heartbroken when my favorite butterfly koi disappears.

Fish Kisses

We have a water pot on our patio. In it are three goldfish of the cheapest kind, one water lily and some other plants.

It seems that three goldfish is the perfect number. We’ve had three for more than a year now. I buy feeder goldfish at the local pet store. Feeder goldfish being the kind of fish people feed to their other pets. I have had more expensive and more showy fish, but racoons got into the yard and ate them, so I decided to spend less money on fish.

I’ve managed to keep the fish alive so far by feeding them, but not too much. I feed them once or twice a week, just a little. One of the side effects of feeding them is that they come to the surface when people are near. And not only people. Ash jumped up onto the rim of the pond to get a drink and got a fish kiss along with her drink of water. I didn’t see this, the Wonderful Spouse described it to me.

Fortunately for both fish and cat, no one was harmed. It was really funny to hear about the fish kissing the cat, though.