My goldfish pond

[CometKeith]

With this nice February weather I have been cleaning leaves from around and in the pond. This is the first time I have ever raked leaves in February! I saw a bunch of fish today. It looks like they are all accounted for and doing fine. I saw 11 at one time and found a few more slinking around. They all looked healthy and had good fins. The hole in the ice is pretty large and the ice in the pond is about 40% open. Several of the fish came close to the top of the water to see what i was doing or maybe wanted food, but not a chance yet because there is still a lot of winter left! Some of them looked a little bigger than I remembered them. Have they been growing in the winter? This winter I didn't have to add any water at all. Last year I was throwing in 5 gallons every few days. Glad I changed the liner last summer.

 

[addy1]

I put some small fish from petsmart into my pond summer of 09, thought they all died over winter, but come spring they were around 3 times the size they were when I had last seen them in the fall. They do grow.

 

[sissy]

well I guess we need our ponds for sanity and relaxation .The work involved just gives us a sense of satisfaction .Or are we just nuts

 

[j.w]

Sissy we aren't just nuts................we are CRAZY HAPPY PRIVILEGED TO BE NUTS!

 

[CometKeith]

Sissy, addy, jw, Is nuts the same as obsessive fanatic? If so I think we all are! On the other hand our ponds are something we have created and have found in them a little piece of nature that we can all enjoy. What is more nuts to watch and think about our ponds for hours on end.... or to sit and watch a tv set for hours on end? I choose the pond!

 

[CometKeith]

Here is an excerpt from someone else (Henry David Thoreau), that was nuts about his ponds: White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamond of Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters, are they! We never learned meanness of them. How much fairer than the pool before the farmers door, in which his ducks swim! Hither the clean wild ducks come. Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth.

 

[sissy]

I find the most relaxing work I do is on my pond and get the most satisfaction from it .I remember as a kid my father worked on Frank Lloyd Wrights home Falling Waters to help restore some of it and I would go with him and just sit and listen to the water falling out from under the house .I guess thats what started my fascination with streams and ponds .I kept asking my father if we could live there ,I loved it so much .It was sad to see some of the neglect .The foundation needed stabilized at that time and the grounds needed tending .My father was one of the volunteers .

 

[CometKeith]

Sissy, That's so neat that you were involved with that project. Falling water is an amazing structure. Frank Lloyd right was really an original thinker. Much of the so called "prairie style" architecture named after the master is bland and homogeneous. Wright was very creative and tried mixing many different materials in a lot of interesting ways. Unfortunately as you mentioned a lot of his works either were not kept up in good repair or didn't have sufficient structural support to start with. I met a new friend today when one of my tenants got a new refrigerator. To give you perspective there is a 17 cubic foot frig behind him in the pic!

 

[CountryEscape]

It looks like a Burmese Mountain dog. They are great dogs! I would love to have one myself.
And, I'm not 100% positive, but pretty sure in Altamont, Illinois, there is a Frank Lloyd Wright "Mansion" that has been brought back to original beauty. It is unbelievably beautiful from the outside, and if I ever catch it when they have it open, I will try to remember to post pics. I recall someone saying it was one of the first houses to have gas lights inside, and all the original fixtures are there and working. Now, maybe I'm wrong, and it's simply called the "Wright Mansion", but I seem to recall it's Frank Lloyd Wright. I will try to find out for sure.
And, CometKeith, I'm only about 3.5 hours south of you, and my pond has had ice covering it just twice for maybe a week or so each time. It has been clear of ice for maybe 2 weeks now, and the water temp on Sunday was 46 at the top! My koi had been hanging out at the bottom but the goldies would be slowly swimming around the edges, nibbling at the algae. The koi were joining them on the weekend, and yes, they did come towards the top when they saw me, too.

 

[CometKeith]

Country, I was a little hesitant to open up the apartment for the delivery guys because I heard the tenant had a big dog. It was the nicest dog I have ever seen. He let me put a leash on him and bring him outside without any problem and was really friendly. The only thing he did not want to go inside when they were done and I had to give a couple tugs on the leash to get him to budge, but then he acquiesced.
I have seen quite a few Wright homes including both Taliesin's and my daughter attended Frank Lloyd Wright camp in Oak Park a few years ago. His homes are always interesting and he focused a lot on how natural light enters a building and how it changes what you see. Unfortunately a lot of new buildings only incorporate the facades of his styles and don't follow some of his interior concepts.
Re ice on the pond, yes this year is so different than previous years. It was really weird to see them all in the middle of winter and I am already starting to think what new project I might do.
Sissy, check out this You tube of Fallingwater on it's 75th Aniversary. I'm sure it looks quite different here than what you remember! The same people who produced this light and sound show are going to do a show in Chicago for the Bean sculpture in Millennium Park later this month.

 

[j.w]

Very cool Keith!

 

[HARO]

I believe that's Bernese, not Burmese. They are named after Bern, Switzerland.
John

 

[j.w]

Always loved the looks of those dogs..........closest we came was getting a St Bernard. He rode in the back of our VW bug and drooled on us,lol!
Think this pic of Noah and my hubby was taken way back in 1973! Oh boy...............he had hippie hair!
Excuse the photo as I took a pic of it w/ my camera.

 

[addy1]

Tell your hubby to regrow the hair! love it, nice looking pup also

 

[CountryEscape]

Very cool video, Keith!
Love the St. Bernard, Addy. I babysat for a family when I was in 8th grade, and they had 3 kids an a St. Bernard. There was no way to keep their sliding glass door clean, as it was a wet mouth one, drooled and slobbered everywhere. They had it as an indoor dog, too! Yikes! The kids were far easier to keep clean than the dog. LOL
Thanks, John, for the correction on the spelling. So, I had to look up "bermese" and found that is a type of python. Oops!