Fish

So, I went and got some pretty good-sized gold fish from a person that has a pond in Sun Lakes.
He was giving them away. He had both Koi and goldfish, I would have liked to have gotten at least 1 Koi - but when I got to his house, another person was already there that also wanted Koi. They were hiding big-time. The owner greeted me and stated that they were not coming out and blamed it on Herring that were flying in and eating the fish.

I did not bother to correct the man - Herring is a fish; Heron is the bird that flies around these parts eating fish out of people's ponds. If you don't believe me, you are welcomed to look it up and correct me if I am wrong.

Regardless, the fish, over the years, had multiplied and he wanted to get rid of some of them to individuals. I've seen Koi going for big bucks. He has 24" inch "plus" sized Koi that he could have sold for a good deal of money. Not. Just wanted to give them out, big heart, nice guy, reminded me of myself in many of my dealings. Koi simply were not available - how he is going to catch them I don't know, cause' they must have a 6th sense and where they were hiding? NO way to get them out of there excepting on their own free will.

Well, the goldfish were not near as skittish, he asked me if I would be happy with them instead? Of course. They're FREE, that's a nice language. 2 ducks walked up on his sidewalk entrance to his home - through a partition no less - wanting their daily feeding. Funny creatures.

Anyway, I ended up with 4 very good sized fish. Not TOO big. I put 2 in each pond and came to regret that decision. For whatever reason, the lower pond isn't "nice" to the fish. The upper pond, yes. They all went into immediate shock, however, which sent me scurrying to the place I love to hate: Walmart - for some stuff that does whatever it does to help fish adapt to new environments. I put that stuff into both ponds and within 15 minutes, the fish in the upper pond were scurrying about as if nothing ever happened, the fish in the lower pond, however, were just sitting there, looking rather lifeless. One of them was hovering on a shelf - I decided to put my 5 gallon bucket in there and see if I could catch him. Easy. Dumped him into the other pond. About an hour later he was scurrying about with his buddies. I could not catch the other one in the lower pond, he was hiding out on the bottom and I do not have a fish net - yet. Hopefully he survives the night, I will catch him tomorrow and all of them will be in the one pond that IS deeper and has more swimming space.

I have 4 holes dug out for posts and I will be putting in the posts tomorrow to keep the sun off of the ponds. It's not even 100 degrees yet and they weren't getting warm, but you could feel the temp of the water going up. It will take longer to get the waterfall installed. I FINALLY decided where to put the thing. Actually, I will have 2 falls. One will be larger than the other. I need the second to house the "bio-filter" setup - it will be just large enough to have an enclosure for it where I can slide it in and out for cleaning purposes.

I am going to also have to get some stuff to get rid of excessive algae. I have acquired lillies from some ponds that were totally green - I don't want green ponds. They don't have to be totally clear, but I want to be able to see into them. The point is that algae is all over those plants and it is starting to cloud the water.

My small ponds will have different treatment requirements, I am guessing, than much larger ponds. I have that UV filter, but it's missing the part that makes it work and I cannot order a new replacement. I have seen several ponds now that have very little algae problems by having the water travel through such a filter.

Tired. Time to go to bed.

G'nite.

ben

Apparently...........

........I have several Blogger accounts. I reset defaults for Explorer, which comletely cleared my cached history, which left me wondering just WHICH password it is to gain access to THIS account. I don't even remember starting up those other blogger accounts, which only have a few posts on them anyway. Well, whatever, just that this account is linked with a totally different email account that I never use - but am glad I still have or I wouldn't have found any way whatsoever to get back HERE! Anyway, I'm going outside in a bit to start work on the waterfall.

Strike that, I'm going to Home Depot in a bit to get cement to bring back here to start work on the waterfall. Let me also add here that WHERE I am going to put the waterfall is up in the air at this point. I had one place set to put it, but I felt that it possibly would not have enough room - so - I may be sitting out there, looking at these ponds and wondering just where AM I going to build this thing? Not sure yet. Where I had wanted to put it would be the best place, yes, so I am at least going to attempt to do a model/practice run and see if I can get it in that space and still have the effect I am lookng for.




Hopefully that video successfully uploads and yes, they were all giving permission to take pics of their property, I took this video right in front of the guy that owns the place, so no infringement going on here. What I liked about this guy's pond was the depth. Many ponds I am seeing online and the other 2 I saw yesterday besides this person's pond are at a depth of 2-1/2 to 3 feet. This pond is at 4 feet. I believe the water will stay cooler in the summer with extra depth. He had also built that above ground feature and yes,there were HUGE Koi in there, probably can't see them in the video.

What I saw dispelled the myth that I must have at least 3 feet deep pond to have koi. That above ground thing was maybe a couple of feet deep at best. No, the statement is that depth is good for keeping Heron away from eating your fish. This man stated he lost several fish last year, the first place I went to the man there stated they had lost up to 25 fish to Heron last year as well.

The place that lost 25 fish simply did not restock fish for a while until the Heron decided to go fish in greener pastures. I didn't even know Heron was a problem in these parts. I think those are those tall birds with long, spindly legs, yes?

I didn't really like the set up of this guy's pond in this video - I mean, it looked really nice and all and I definitely complimented them on the great job they had done, but, it isn't the design I am looking for. If I had enough room on my property, I would build a pond with an island in the middle. The island would have a gazebo type of setup with a table and benches and of course a BBQ grill. It would also have a misting system and overhead fan to move air around in the summer.

I don't have near that much room, but, I can put a setup like that on one side of the potential pond. Not quite the effect I will want, but it will work well regardless.

Where am I going to get the money to build a gazebo, you say? Who knows. Not even in the offering right now, just a long-term goal. I am stuck on this property for a long, long time as far as I can see, might as well continue to develop it and make it as appealing to any potential buyers as possible. This is not my dream house, it is better than nothing, but certainly not my idea of a retirement home or something. It is a starter home, that's all it is. It is FHA financed and qualified, which makes it easier for any potential buyer to get a loan on it though FHA instead of conventional loans.

The fact that I live in an area that was one of the hardest hit in referring to the housing collapse - housing values are not going to come back up any time soon. Homes are being short-saled all over the place which are bringing property values down even more. Home owners that are NOT walking away from their homes are getting pretty upset about it and understandably so. If you live in a neighborhood where all the homes are around $250,000 and then some person that lives in one of them can't make the payments and decides to short sale, what does that do to your property value? Well, if the house is sold for low 100's it reduces everyone else's property values substantially. I've seen them going even MUCH lower than that - 50's 60's even at auction.

Okay, now, you have all the rest of the property owners living around that house considering walking as well, even if they can afford the payment. The value of their house just plummeted 100k or more, they now owe a LOT more than the house is worth, bye bye. People are doing this all over the place. Short saling may help the distressed home owner but it totally SCREWS everyone else with the comps in any given neighborhood.

Where does it end? Well sooner or later it WILL end. When? Who knows. When jobs come back would be a good guess. OAD (Obama Administration) thinks everything is starting to look peachy and rosy now.......sure, if you're rich, sitting in the White House and are basically unaffected by financial problems. This has always been one of my biggest complaints with everyone that is sent to Washington: They are ALL rich, they have NO basis to connect with the common man or woman who is NOT rich and struggling to make it, which there are a LOT more of those than rich people. I do not envy them or hold it against them that they are wealthy, that's not the point: the point is they see things through very different sets of eyes in terms of perspective than someone like me that is basically living paycheck to paycheck.

Back to my own point: My house is not worth as much as the mortgage that is on it. It's about a 30k difference in being upside-down. I could easily walk from this place. There are plenty of houses that allow dogs that are available right now for rent - I've seen them going as low as $600 per month. I wouldn't need tenants, I could live all by my lonesome and have my privacy back. BUT, figure a good 10 years at least before I would EVER be able to get into a house again. That's a LONG time and I will be starting to get old by then.

Therefore, I am stuck here by my own decision. What would make this property very cool is if I could acquire 1 of the properties on either side of me or even behind me. One property has no house on it at all. The "houses" to the east and west of me are old, junky mobile homes. Having the property to do with what I want would be the point. Get rid of the junky mobiles, clear it out and build an oasis there instead.

Money, obvioiusly, constrains me from doing anything like that. It probably always will be an issue in my life, I have just learned to deal with it and not go around whining and complaining about it. If the good Lord ever sees fit to send some dough my way, then all bets are off.

Regardless, this posting has waxed long and I want to get up to Home Depot.

G'day.

ben