Pond next to the house was overflowing this morning. Yes, it rained last night. Free water to fill the pond (and water my plants)? Take that any day. Anyway, I have a trip to make this morning to go get some more fish - free - another pond being shut down. Got in on that one too late: they were giving away Koi and goldfish. Koi are gone, goldfish are left. They claim they are 8 inches long and have 7 of them. Well, for free, who cares what kind of fish they are, a big point of having ponds is to have fish in them. These fish will go into the smaller pond as I believe I am maxed out on the number of fish the bigger pond should have in it.
Too many fish and the water will start to get full of toxins even if you are running a filtering system 24 hours a day. After that, a family of however many is coming over to bring their beloved goldfish and want to see what kind of setup the fish is going to go into. Okay. Another free fish and I don't have to go anywhere to get it. After that - well this may be pushing it timewise but I am hopeful to make it to church again.
2-1/2 hour break. Got 6 fish from the shut-down pond and another goldfish arrived, family in tow, a few minutes ago. These people wanted to shut down the aquarium but apparently wanted the kids to know that the fish was going to a good home. So, they came into my back yard, mother had camera, papa had bucket, slowly dumped it into the pond, fish dumped out, kids started screaming with excitment - and they left. That was it. No elongated this that and the other thing, the got the fish in there and I guess that was their way of washing their hands of the fish and keeping it something in a good light for the kids.
The 6 fish are in the other pond. They went to the bottom of it and sat there for a while. They had been kept in a small tub with water so murky and dirty, you couldn't see those fish in there even though it was only maybe 14 inches deep. The transport home probably didn't help them any, either. Shock treatment should help them and so I dumped some of that in there.
Now that this is all over, I am attempting to decide whether to go to church or not. I woke up too early this morning and now all this driving around and "excitement" has worn me out. I'm ready to take a nap, not get dressed in Sunday Nines and go to church.
Well, I have half an hour to decide.
Meanwhile, I'm still dieting. My quit date for this diet? When I lose the weight? That probably won't work too well, now will it. If you spend a year losing the weight and then just gain it all back again after you are "done", what possible good does that do? I would think that would be depressing, to be honest. I have no idea, honestly. A life change in eating habits is what this is really all about. I have kept a pretty strict approach about it - no cheating. But, I have decided, I have been on this for quite a while now, the weight is ever-so-slowly dropping - but - I need to be able to cheat at least ONCE in a while. Just one thing that I want, too: a German Chocolate Blizzard. Pretty much guaranteed that before too many more days pass, I will have bought and consumed one and I won't feel bad about it one iota.
Now, if I go out and get ANOTHER one, then we have trouble.
Well, I"m going to go check the fish and try taking a 20 minute nap. Perhaps that will be enough to motivate me to go.
ben
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Monday
FINALLY came into work and found something to do in the truck routing system. I was NOT looking forward to having to attempt to invent things to do all day long as was the case for most of last week, sans one day when I was running around all day long.
I am simply not the kind of person that wants to sit around doing nothing at work. It gets boring, monotonous and I start to get lethargic.
I placed an ad in Craigslist a while back asking for "things for the pond". Instead of constantly scouring the ads for people shutting their ponds down and either giving stuff away or selling very cheap, I thought I'd just put the ad out there and see what happens.
Yesterday, a family contacted me through the ad saying that their son is going to college, they have to red eared slider turtles, do you want them? I had to think about that. What do turtles eat? How much does it cost to keep them? I started looking it up - they LIKE to eat fish and even some vegetables, but the main thing that keeps them healthy is some prefabricated food that you buy at the store, much like the Koi pellets I have to buy about once a month (at $6.00 per large can, I am not spending very much money keeping all of those fish).
I have an extra pond and was thinking I could put them in there and see what happens. Keep them from the goldfish - definitely far away from them, I don't want them crawling aroud my yard, finding the other ponds and then having dinner on a goldfish or Koi. That's kind of the dilemna - where to put the pond so I know they won't be bothering the fish. The only answer I can come up with is out front where I was going to put one of those ponds anyway.
The front of my house is starting to look like a tropical rain forest or something. There is so much trees and vegetation - well - it's really the effect I was looking for anyway. Most of the sissoo trees that I have planted around the property - over 20 of them - have taken off and growing like giant weeds - that includes the trees out front.
I'll have to clear a place for the pond - it's a small one I have no intention of putting a large pond out front and taking up precious space for trees and shrubbery - but I do have a place in mind.
One problem, however, is getting electricity out there. Have to have a small aerator and a small pump to keep the water from stagnating and going foul. I have the pump, I have an extra bio-filter - I do not have an aerator but they only cost $10 for a small one so no big deal and they don't use much electricity.
Which leads me to the next "problem" I was facing in this array of ponds I am going to have out there - I need an electrical box mounted on a pole with at least 12 outlets to really do this right. Fortunately, there IS electricity out there - the line that feeds my AC unit could be tapped to provide the power.
But - funds are very tight right now. I have a big plus in my corner going: the elimination of all of those kids coming over had an instant effect on finances: a lot of food not being consumed. Chips, cookies drinks? Haven't bought any in over a week. My son doesn't want any of that stuff so I have no further reason to buy the junk. I don't eat it, either. But far beyond that is the huge amount of food I was buying to fill teenaged stomachs, which, if you've ever had teenagers, you know how much food they can eat.
I'll bet I dropped $300 per month - AT LEAST - in the departure of all of them. The only ones left are my son and J.D., the oldest black brother who comes over at night to get on the internet. No, they don't have internet at their house. He's been coming over to my house for.....years now. He does like the junk food but I am simply not going to be buying any more of it, or very little of it at this point.
I'm still in the deep woods- not out of the woods yet - in terms of finances and money spent on electricity and all the issues with tenants. One tenant will be getting a 5-day notice - she is paying me a portion of the rent with her unemployment but not all of it and now has entered a 3 week "behind" period that I will not let go any further, as I have no belief that she is going to find a job anytime soon.
The second tenant should have paid me the other half of the rent by now, she has not. That will be a "friendly notice" - please pay up. She does have a job and should have paid it by now.
So, do I get the turtles? A stop at Walmart today to find out how much that food costs will determine that. If it's as cheap as the Koi pellets and goldfish flakes, then I will have no problem with it.
Antonio - the 4 inch goldfish the family brought over yesteday - is doing quite well in his new environment. He's the smallest fish in the tank besides the mosquito eaters, but, apparenlty, goldfish don't really mess with each other that much, at least not from what I have observed.
The jury's still out on the 6 free fish I got yesterday and dumped into the other pond. They weren't doing well to begin with with the conditions they were subjected to at the previous owner's house, only time will tell if they are going to pull out of it.
Anyway, work day is almost here....
G'day.
ben
Life can be stressful sometimes, even when you are trying to relax...
Yes, indeed it can!
ben
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