Lost fish.......

As many of my followers know we have had several Koi ponds over the years. Tulsa is no exception. When we bought the house it had a useless backyard...or perhaps better yet.....ski slope with no snow. We really hated it. Never spent any real time out there just mowed it. Back and forth...back and forth east to west, west to east. Over a four year period we started to change it up with no real plan....just get rid of the slope and perhaps turn it into an outdoor studio location. First was a patio with some precast concrete pavers... Expanded it the following year adding railroad ties to hold the backfill dirt in place. The next year we added a concrete wall to reinforce a larger patio pad and then noticed that there was room between the old deck for us to add another deck with a Koi pond. As we were doing this it seemed logical to add a lower deck to the one we were putting in with stairs to the lawn below.

As we did this-digging the pond-we had the railroad ties from the previous wall and a bunch of dirt from the excavation of the pond. We took the ties and put them to the south of one of our Bradford pear tree and used the fill from the pond to create a level area we deemed "the secret garden". A year later while Karen was at church I built another wall from stackable "pavers" south of the railroad ties.
Filling it with dirt I was able to hide the ties and we had another planting area. As one of the features
I added an architectural piece of stone I got out of a dumpster when there were redoing the Post Office in Carthage and added that as an area for a plant.

Needless to say the back yard is a great area to photograph clients in. HOWEVER !!!

We started with 3 Koi and several other exotic goldfish. Evidently fish have no morals as I hadn't seen any marriage ceremonies in the chapel on the bottom of the pond or any rings on fins of the fish and we suddenly had about 45 fish swimming in the pond. Most farmers will tell you never to name animals on the farm if you are going to eat them...kinda hard to have a friend for dinner if you know what I mean. Koi and goldfish are basically carp, we don't eat carp, so we named most of them. They all have personalities and we would look at them from the deck noting subtle changes and size growth.

Last week I thought that the numbers were different......didn't see a couple of fish we had named.
Buck was missing as was Golda. Golda had a habit of hiding under the water fall so not seeing her was not a big deal. Over then next several days as the rain kept coming down and the Arkansas River, which is a bout a mile west of us, started to get higher I noticed more fish missing. Mentioning it to Karen she looked and agreed. I looked out of my office down at the pond several mornings ago and there was a Blue Heron getting ready to snack on our babies ! I flew down the stairs, ran outside and as the bird flew off I was screaming in a provocative voice " Get out of here you Son of a B-------!! And don't come back !!! If the neighbors were out....they must think I'm crazy.

It's hard to count fish however they are straying in the deep part of the pond which is deeper than the bird can reach.....I think. We have the radio on next to the pond and that seems to be working. The bird hasn't been by since we put it out. Tomorrow we have a motion activated predator bird call arriving which will replace the radio. The neighbors may really think I have gone south when they hear a screeching banshee eagle call from the backyard. "What in the hell is he keeping out there
now ???"

Maybe when the Arkansas goes down the bird will leave us alone. When I think of the fish we lost I think it is appropriate to mention Leonard Cohen singing "Hallelujah". The fish were our "kids" and they will be remembered. Google Leonard and the song.....it just seems to fit. The bamboo across the pond is serving as another deterrent to the bird....why make it easy... The black tray on the left will be cut down and turned into a potting table. It used to be my darkroom sink. Click on the image and it will get larger.