Posted on

POND BE GONE

A SPECIAL THANKS TO GREG FOR THE NETS! THEY WORKED GREAT!

When we bought our house one of the things we were excited about was the pond that came fully stocked with huge Koi fish and for a few years there we enjoyed feeding the fish and seeing them multiply. Then Maggie came along and the pond took on a whole new light and we decided to fill it in, rather than constantly be worrying about the dangers of Maggie falling in.

Maggie's face when we told her our plan to fill the pond in!
Maggie’s face when we told her our plan to fill the pond in!

What we failed to really think about was the size of the pond and how we were going to catch those dang fish.  Sky Nursery was willing to take the fish off our hands, but we just needed to deliver them safe and sound. Easier said than done,  people!! Turns out our pond is easily 5 feet deep and those fish had survived in the pond for so long not because they’re dumb or slow. So we started the process of draining the pond Tuesday morning and finally unplugged the pump Wednesday evening. Ugh.

Once the pond was low enough to get the fish out Barry was the most magnificent fish wrangler I’ve ever seen. He was graceful, patient and all things I wasn’t. If a fish ended up in my net, I started shrieking and cussing. I think that’s why we make such a good team: Barry is steady as a rock and I’m…..I’m wobbly like Beyonce.

SERIOUSLY THINKING THIS WAS A BAAAAAD IDEA…EXCEPT IT WAS my IDEA

Suffice to say, it was a much larger task than I ever thought to drain the pond and say ‘adios’ to the fish. In total we emptied 7 huge Koi and at least 15 teeny ones out.  Thanks to Cora (not Chaya) for coming by and catching some of the tiny baby fish. Where there was a pond now is a huge, gaping hole with disgusting sludge in the bottom. Hopefully we’ll find the time over these next days to start filling it in because falling into a sludge filled hole isn’t much different than falling into a pond, right?

SPECIAL THANKS TO GRAMMY FIDGET AND SPARKY FOR COMING AND HELPING ENTERTAIN THE MORSELS. COME BACK SOON!

So there you have it. The consolidated first part of this whole pond debacle.  I fully wish that we were able blink and the whole project would be done. If only we were so lucky. If you’ve got some things you’d like to throw in the hole, I’m considering making it a huge time capsule, so write yourself a letter and we can toss it in together! When Maggie is a teenager we’re going to reinstall the pond.

Just kidding.

In all honesty, if you’ve got any fill dirt or ideas about this process we’d love to hear from you…..but really if you’ve got some dirt for us, let us know!

Looking forward to the next part of this project?

Me too.

Posted on

Blinded By The Light

It seems like with my photography I am always on the lookout for the best light and the best angle to capture the shot. I find myself thinking about light a lot and end up kicking myself when an opportunity knocks and I’ve left my camera to gather dust somewhere. I try to never use my flash and rely on natural light to get the job done and am  grateful for our house that has big windows and tons of natural light.

I’ve been stretching my runs longer, and I’ve found myself weaving through neighborhoods that I never knew existed and I’ve noticed one commonality: people keep their blinds shut ALL the time. As a photographer, it pains me to see how closed off to light people are, but as a person I can’t help but think what living in a dark, dark place does for one’s outlook on life. I determined that not only am I in search of light to better my pictures, but also to better other aspects of my life: lighter thinking, lighter weight, lighter teeth (seriously!), lighter-minded friends, and lighter/brighter days.

We got rid of all of our blinds a while ago, they’re sitting in the garage and will most likely find a new home at Value Village. Our bedrooms have blinds that we close at night and open first thing in the morning, we’re lucky enough to not have neighbors that live thisclose to us, but even if we did I’d still open my blinds to let the light in.

I hope you’re able to search for the best light today.

Posted on

Bites, Zits and The Speed Queen

I’ve got a huge red splotch on my nose from a bite-kiss that Maggie planted on me the other day. I knew that she got me pretty good, but when I woke up yesterday I was shocked to see the damage that she did. It kind of looks like a zit, but having a zit on the bridge of my nose isn’t exactly my idea of a dream. So it goes, right?

Things could certainly be worse, but they’re not. I came upon Maggie and Barry having a quiet moment the other morning and I about melted into a puddle because it was so cute. Maggie takes a while to wake up and they were having a quiet conversation about the upcoming events in our day….one of which happened to be the death of The Old Speed Queen.

Yep, our dryer broke. Maybe Maggie knew it was going to happen and was trying to prevent anymore dirty clothes from needing to be washed; none the less, we’re waiting until next weekend to get a new one because apparently there is a HUGE warehouse sale that we MUST attend, according to the sales guy. I figure if the sales guy is telling us to wait for the HUGE sale, we better check it out.

Either way, our laundry pile is growing, but so is the bite mark on my nose…maybe it is a zit after all.