Over the course of the past month or two my Mom has been working on getting a pond together in the back yard (if she posts a blog about it I'll be sure to attach the link!). The birds have been LOVING it. They like to stand on the rock where the water falls from the box into the lower water and bathe themselves, it's so cute to watch.
We even had an Eastern Painted Turtle for a short while.
Her name was Squirt, like in Nemo. At least I'm pretty sure it was a female. Anywho, she stuck around for about two weeks, two-and-a-half then suddenly was gone. My Dad think a racoon or a hawk got it, I think she ran away. It was a wild turtle, so it wouldn't be a surprise if it just took off to find somewhere else to be.
It was very friendly. We had the chance of keeping a Snapping Turtle, but Mom didn't like that idea... :[ I got to hold it though! It was only a juvenile, he fit right in the palm of my hand and was in fact very friendly, he didn't bite once, and he liked to have his shell rubbed. I wish I would've gotten a video of it, it was so funny. He looked like he belonged in Harry Potter.
When you have a pond, you need fish. I'm pretty sure it's the law to have a pond without any sort of animal or something ;]
So this past week me and Mom set out in search for fish. Of course, being mid-Spetember (I almost put October. Where has the time gone??) the choice of fish is very slim, and it's getting a little late to get any just because of the weather. But that didn't stop us!
One week we went to a pond store where Mom's been getting all her pond supplies to build the beautiful water habitat (a picture will be posted when it's completely finished) and the owner of the store has two ponds. A small one outside the building that has beautiful small and giant Koi, along with a much bigger one with a waterfall that has like three dozen huge Koi in it.
The black ones are my favorite. They don't stick out as much as the colorful ones so you have to look a little harder for them in the water. It's cool (and sounds really weird) only being to see something moving just under the surface.
When we finally set out to actually get the fish, and not just look at what was around we went to a completely different pond store. It was both a nursery, a feed store, and a pond supply place. It's huge. We were expecting it to be all nice and sunny, but it was raining buckets that day, therefore making it a little difficult to take a lot of pictures.
Although, I got one of a Damselfly.
We got two Fan Tails. The bottom one, with the mostly white tail is named Nemo, and I haven't decided on the other yet.
They are very photogenic.
At the store with the Koi ponds, and saw a GORGEOUS gold and white one that was all fancy looking but we found another tank outside that had younger ones and there was this black one with a silver stripe on its back, but when the lady put it in the bag it looked more like a trout... so we got one that was still a good bit of black, with orange/red on the sides, and silver/white on it's belly. It's name is Pouncey. I can assure you he won't be out for 6 weeks with a torn fin.
Last stop was a pet store that had tons of tanks, lots of salt water fish, too.
Mom got 12 feeder fish, which kept in tanks that I would be embarrassed for people to see, however, the other tanks were very nicely kept. Specifically the salt water tanks.
On the way home though one of them was belly up, but all the others were okay, they were all active and it's been a few days and none have passed.
So now the pond has 3 Blue Gills, 11 Feeder Fish, 2 Fan Tails, and 1 Koi. Next summer Mom wants to get tadpoles, another Koi with the fancy tail, and I want a turtle and an all black Koi.
No pond is complete without a turtle.
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