Fish – Page 2 – Rippled Effects

June 23, 2008

Gardening challenge # 1

Hubby and I worked hard in our pond, yard and garden on Saturday and were enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon being “trapped” inside by thunder and lightning storms in the area. I was sitting in my favorite chair by the east windows in our living room, reading and watching TV, when something moving outside those windows caught my attention. One of this year’s fawns was approaching a flower bed by my patio where I grow the plants and flowers that “deer don’t eat”. What I have discovered is that the fawns don’t know what deer don’t eat and must taste and try everything at least once. This spring I have found tops eaten off of plants that deer have never touched before. I had found the outside edges of this plant munched on earlier this week and asked hubby to spray the area with Bobex (a horrible smelling liquid that deters deer from eating the plants you spray it on). It was amusing to watch this fawn start to nibble on this plant and then sort of spit and stick out his tongue. You could almost read his thoughts —- “this plant tasted much better on Thursday!”.

I ran and got my camera — and this photo’s poor quality is due to the fact that I was photographing the fawn through a not-so-clean window. And no, I did not zoom this photo — that’s how close he was to the house. His nose has just been pulled back from the funny smelling plant and he seems to be staring at it accusingly. So, perhaps now he knows this is one of the plants that deer don’t eat.

And on the other side of the house the fish in our pond were in what I called before “crazy fish” mode. Swimming in circles, darting around the plants and through the falls, and swimming about as fast as I think they probably can swim. We do have a hatch of very tiny, almost invisible, fish in the pond from an earlier spawning and if hubby is correct in that this circular swimming and chasing of one fish in particular is spawning behavior — well, there are more to come.

June 19, 2008

Reflections

It’s a beautiful day here in Connecticut and the call of the wren by his nest and the rush of the water over the falls into our pond drew me outside. I found that the fish were having a good time playing tag, so I brought the camera out and tried to capture them. They were swimming so fast that it was not an easy task, but I eventually caught all five of them in one shot and mostly in focus. Thank goodness for digital photography where you can just delete the bad and out-of-focus pictures. I’m not positive about the identification, but I think from left to right they are — Hoover, Half and Half, Lady, Hot Lips (white one in front), and Junior.

And as I was trying to catch the fish near the surface I accidentally took a beautiful picture of the blooming water hyacinths. The reflection of the lavender flowers in the dark water is almost prettier than the flowers themselves. One of the fish just disappears into the ripples from the waterfall on the left.

Yes — it’s a beautiful day to be out here with all this.

June 16, 2008June 16, 2008

Weekends at the pond

Weekends at our home bring us into the outdoors, working on the various flower beds, the house (yes, those gutters were full of oak tree droppings according to hubby), the veggie garden,etc. But, the best of all is working around and in the pond and observing the parts of mother nature that we share it with. The pond aquaculture has stabilized a bit from early spring and the slimy algae is all but gone. Of course, it’s being replaced by string algae, but that’s more easily removed from the pond and does not obscure the clarity of the water like the slimy stuff does. The new fish are growing more tame — coming nearer and nearer my hand at feeding time. Yesterday, the bravest one actually took a piece of food directly from my fingertips. He is the most brave and seems to be the most hungry, swimming quickly around and sucking up a lot of food pellets. I’ve named him Hoover (after the vacuum, not the president). The others are coming directly to my hand as I place it in the water but they insist on waiting until the food has been released and they can grab it off the top of the water. It’s really fun to watch them feed and my patience is being rewarded by increasingly friendly fish. We feed them at nearly the same time every day and they are quickly learning about telling time too. They start swimming around near the feeding rock and checking it out starting about an hour or so before the appointed time.

The waterlilies are blooming — absolutely beautiful — one plant is white, the other yellow.

And Phinneas is back this year. Hubby named him Gurk after he first appeared this spring. But he is so large and so tame and his markings are so familiar that I am pretty sure that he is Phinneas back for his third year with us here at the pond. He appeared at the water’s edge the very first weekend the pond was full two years ago this fall. Who knows where he came from or how he knew there was a pond being built that he could call home, but there he was. You can see in this photo how his coloring matches the green of the algae covered rock he is sitting on at the water’s edge. No wonder I cannot find him at times when I’m out visiting the pond. When I go out to feed the fish, I call to them and talk to them to coax them out from under the floating plants. Gurk/Phinneas almost always starts talking to me and responding to my voice. Hubby has read, and is convinced, that if I go to the pet store and get some live insects that I could train him to come to my hand for feeding also. Hmmmmmmmmmm…….

$Here\'s lookin at ya\'$

So, while others get into their cars for long drives to their weekend spots, we will be gleefully weekending at the pond.

May 15, 2008May 15, 2008

Crazy Fish

Our new fish are still somewhat shy, but in the last couple of days have begun to be a little less afraid of us when we are near the pond. For the last two days they have been swimming swiftly around the pond in circles around the plants, through the cave, past the skimmer, under the floating plants, under the waterfall, and just around and around. It sometimes looks like they are playing tag, but I cannot figure out what the rules are. Hubby has read that this fast swimming and what appears to be chasing of each other is spawning behavior. I call them my crazy fish. It does look like they are having glorious fun swimming in their new pond. When I am out near the pond they won’t come very near the top. I did manage to catch all 5 of them together in the bottom (with my camera of course!).

And, just for fun, I sat the ceramic frogs next to the frog spitter and they are now out there keeping an eye on my crazy fish. The ceramic frogs were birthday gifts for hubby and me for our birthdays last year — made by my sister. The middle one looks a little fierce, doesn’t he? Perhaps we can have her make us a smiley frog this year.

May 3, 2008May 3, 2008

Welcome!

Welcome to the Rippled Effects blog. Here you will find some random thoughts, some notes on my various activities (knitting, quilting, stained glass, music, gardening, photography, ……. I could go on and on) and some musings on the effects of our actions, big and small, as they ripple through the world around us.

And to start things off, here is today’s photo — the “launching” of the new fish into our garden pond. After a disastrous winter where all the fish in the pond came floating to the top of the pond, one by one, we have added six new fish to the pond today. Here some of them are — Half-and-Half being the third one out of the plastic bag into the pond.

Tomorrow, we will be anxiously checking on our new BFFs (Best Fish Friends) to watch their adjustment to their new home. It is wonderful to see fish in the pond again. Welcome to your new home guys!