always the favorite

How come if you loose a fish or one gets sick, its always your favorite? This past week, I've been trying to nurse my favorite shushui back to health. I have always had trouble keeping shushui. Not sure why, perhaps its because they are scaleless or perhaps they are just a weak breed?? Whatever the reason, I purchased 3 new ones this year. They're not the first I've had. I've owned several and have never been successful at keeping them alive. I figured if I bought 3 of them that are a little bigger, maybe my chances would increase. Well, of the 3, my favorite one has developed an ulcer this past week. Harry noticed a "red spot" on him last Saturday. We were hosting the Northern Iowa Pond and Koi Club that evening for dinner. So, we just left him for Sunday. He's in my smaller upper pond where I have several lilies. That pond of fish has always been spooked. They constantly hide under the lilies, so the fact that we even saw the sore is lucky. Good thing Harry noticed it. So, Sunday we pulled him out to get a closer look and sure enough, he had a raised sore on his side about the size of a silver dollar. Dang it, dang it, dang it!!!! These fish were all treated for parasites earlier in the season, so what's causing this? Of the 3 shushui I bought, he is the one with the nicest zipper. (That row of black scales that run down their back) So, now he's in my basement. I liked this fish so much that I even went to the vet to get some antibiotics. 5 injections of Baytril. I've moved him to the basement where he's in a very small tank of water with an bacterial water conditioner and salt in it. He's not happy, I cleaned the wound and have given him 3 injections to date, unfortunately he's not looking any better. If anything its still growing and getting worse. Looks awful, and the fish looks terribly depressed to be in such a small tank without his buddies. I'm worried for him. Am hoping the antibiotics will kick in soon. If not, I'll be deferring to the vet again for help. Shushui, maybe I'm just not meant to have one????

St. Louis travels...

A month or so back, good friend and fellow ponder Jamie Beyer called to ask if Harry and I would like to accompany him to St. Louis for a day. He was asked to give a talk there for the St. Louis Water Garden Assoc.'s annual banquet. Well, I jumped at the opportunity, with the stipulation that we got to go to the St.L. Botanical gardens, too. We also had the privilege to stay with some of the nicest people you'll ever meet, Pam and Rick Jogerest. After 15 years of visiting ponds all across the US, I'm always amazed when I walk into yet another jewel box of a garden. Talk about eye candy. Their ponds and entire back yard where just utterly beautiful! Being late summer, it was completely engulfed with plant material. 3 separate ponds encompassed the yard too, along with a swimming pool and large deck area. Party central. Pam is the garden designer and plant specialist, while Rick loves the fish and helps to do the endless watering and care. They have featured their ponds many years on the "Pond O Rama" tour and this year selected to be on the prestigious Botanical Gardens Garden Tour. And she still has more plans for a couple places in the far back yard! They recent redid the smallest of the ponds to include an above ground window. You could look into the pond and see the fish below the surface of the water. Way cool! The newest pond is Rick's Japanese pond. 8' deep and home to some very nice koi.

That evening we went with Jamie to the SLWGA annual appreciation dinner. Their club had about 80 members in attendance. It was held at the Jewel Box, which is a huge glass building at one of St.L city parks. The huge ponds out in front are a club project that they maintain. What a super bunch of people also. The meal was great and Jamie gave an excellent talk as normal. Pam was the club's event planner and I could see why they ask her to do it as it was very well done.

We returned to the house and swam in their beautiful swimming pool , sat in their hot tub, and drank margaritas till almost 3 in the morning. What great host!!! The following day, we were up early, went out for breakfast and Pam escorted us to the Botanical Gardens. What a delight. The gardens there are just beautiful, plus Pam was so knowledgeable about everything there. Was so nice to have a personal guide all weekend. I had a blast. Unfortunately, we also had to drive home the same day. So our 2 day whirlwind vacations ended way too soon. Am so hoping I get an invite back someday, or perhaps our club really needs to plan a trip to their "Pond O Rama" If so, I'm there. It was a great mini vacation and we saw some great gardens and ponds. Flowers to die for....

crocheting in the garden

Got up this am to temperatures still in the 70's. It was one of those mornings when everything was still covered with dew. I couldn't help but notice that everything was covered with spider webs! Glorious works of carefully crocheted art everywhere. They were even strung clear across my pond stream. Some 5 feet across. I always wonder how they get from one side to the other! Webs draped across power lines, from tree limb to limb, and on every plant in the garden. Territories carefully marked out; plants shared by spiders of every size. Most seemed void of their owners, but I knew they were not too far off. I sure hope they eliminate some of the mosquitoes out there! They have been just relentless. Possibly the worst I've ever seen them. I hate spraying them, but it has been really impossible to comfortably sit outside. They are blood hungry and come in droves. I've been doing a lot of work on the gardens, cutting out spent flowers and pulling the relentless weeds. I don't even attempt this without first spraying down with bug spray. I'm beginning to feel like a deet sponge. So maybe these natural predators will help me out. A food source of mosquitoes is definitely in large supply out there. Any way it was quite beautiful out there this morning. Enough so that I returned to the house for the camera. So what if I'm a minute late for work or so. If you don't pause once in awhile, some worthwhile things will never catch up to you.

Leaves, hot weather, and babies

Well, it's almost mid August and I can already tell Autumn is just around the corner. It's that "blankety..blank" Walnut tree! It's already loosing leaves by the buckets full. Every morning I come out of the house and the skimmer pump is gravitating for water. The basket is full of leaves and Harry begins to complain that its too labor intensive. I keep reminding him that its doing its job of collecting leaves, so its not like its mal-functioning or anything. And, I'd be happy if it got them all. I'd empty the basket 2 or 3 times a day (which we will be doing in another couple weeks) happily if it got all the leaves. But for every leaf it collects there is one in the bottom of the pond. And, Walnut leaves and the walnuts themselves will turn my water brown. Yuck! No matter what I do I hate this time of the year. Walnut trees are the last to get leaves in the Spring and the first to loose them in the fall. Combine that with a rain storm nearly every other night and you get leaves falling already in August. Harry loves fall, cause it means cooler temps, hunting season, and less bugs. To me it means the flowers are all dieing, the leaves are making a mess of everything, and days are getting shorter. None of which I like.
Everywhere you go people are complaining about the weather. Too much rain..and the heat. Well it has been really hot. Temps in the 80's and 90's for almost 3 weeks now. That is pretty hot for Iowa. The fish don't like it either. My pond temps were only about 76 degrees this morning. I thought they would be worse. I'm sure in lots of full sun ponds the koi are stressed by the hot water. Harry has been doing water changes a couple times a week which helps to cool the water too. This week he actually installed air lines to the bottom of my DIY biofilters. Something I've been hinting for him to do for awhile now. Totally surprised me. Only thing is my air pump will not run both the biofilter and the pond aerators at the same time. So, now I have to shop for an additional air pump. He was really surprised at how much crap it kicks off the bio balls, though. We've also been looking at building a sand/gravel filter to help with removing the fines in the pond. We've decided to put it off till next spring. There is always something bigger or better, and he is getting tired of my suggestions of "add ons" . But, he's the first to like clear water and beautiful fish, so that helps. He won't garden, but he loves the ponds. Don't know what I'd do without him. We're also already planning on installing an additional pond in the basement. Wish I could find a heated, with well water, garage locally. I'd move them all to a rented garage if I could for the winter.
This year for the first time, we're seeing babies in the pond! He called all excited about seeing perhaps a dozen or more 3-4 inch fish in the lower pond. They usually get sucked up in the bottom drains and ran through our pumps. But this year, for some reason we've managed to keep a few with out even trying. We'll see how they survive... I'm not optimistic. 12 out of a million eggs. That's not very good odds. But they must be real survivors.

Upper Midwest Koi Club's Koi Show

Had a great time this past weekend. Went to the Upper Midwest Koi Club's annual Koi Show in Minneapolis. What a nice event. The seminars we went to were nice. Not many attended them, but they are a great extra touch. My only complaint was I didn't even get a chance to get around to all parts of Bachman's nursery! What a great setting for this event. This is one of the finest nurseries I've ever been in. With a huge home interior store, a restaurant, massive greenhouse, and stone yards...it's just a maze of eye candy for the gardener. I had talked Harry into taking the truck this year on the assumption that we wanted to buy a piece of flat stone to use as a coffee table out beside the pond. We did buy something called Tres Rios which is kind of a black and white slab that looks like water is running through it. And that's it! Believe it or not, I didn't buy a fish or even a plant! Not me at all, but I felt rushed the whole weekend. There was always someplace else to get to or someone else to talk to. I never even got a chance to walk amongst the plants or go into the home interior part. :( I could have spent another day just doing that. Sunday they allowed people to tour the nearby AKCA "Pond of the Year". OMG what a beautiful place. It was actually a small yard with over 600 varieties of Hostas. Planted pots everywhere and evergreens of all sorts. The pond was gorgeous as expected. Koi Aces was the contractor. They do the resin blow in type of pond coating. The bridges and built in floating steps were a great attraction. Very few flowers..the owners wanted a green quiet garden. Following the tour our Iowa group went to Koi Acres to view their facilities. Mike Swanson was so nice to us. His wife actually took us out to his place and gave us a personal tour. What a very nice lady. Their son Devon is the only American to actually get a student visa to "learn how to raise koi" in Japan. Koi Acres does not raise fish, but imports them all in from Japan. And some of the fantastic Showa we saw while there would just blow your socks off! They also had an outside pond with perhaps the largest koi I've ever seen. They weren't particularly beautiful fish as they were chagoi, but their impressive size was awesome. Easily 36 inches in length and their heads where 8-10 inches wide! Huge fish and they'd come right up to you and beg to be touched and fed. Very impressive. But it was the showa that made me depressed. They were drop dead beautiful fish .

A lass it was still a fun weekend. Went out and ate some fantastic oysters on the half shell, enjoyed good wine with friends, and laughed a lot. Not quite as perfect as coming home from Nashville with a truck full of fish and trees, but a close second!