Solution......dumb us....

I had mentioned that we should probably put the "leaf guard" net up and was met with lukewarm response.......so I did it anyway.  We bought it in the Fall to keep the leaves from falling into the pond and took it down earlier in the Spring. It works great for keeping the leaves out, preventing their decomposition into sludge in the bottom of the pond. If the heron comes back he will have a hard time getting through  the netting for his daily brunch at Morgan Pond. It is strapped down solidly  on the edges so I think we have the loss of fish taken care of. If we have guests over for dinner or whatever we can move it for a better look at the fish. I was just about to name the backyard the "Valley of Death"...

As dumb as it sounds the fish seem to know that something has changed as they are swimming freely throughout the pond. Before I put it up they huddled in the deepest part of their ocean and didn't surface much unless I fed them. Even then it was an "eat and swim" situation. Dinnertime conversations became very limited. If I have photographic sessions out there I will also remove it for that.

Years ago Leon Kennimer gave a siminar I attended were he explained the advantage of shooting with the sun reflected from a pond. It's like adding a hot box lighting set up without electricity to an environmental portrait situation. I did that when I was in Carthage at Spring River and Morrow Mill but until we put in the pond I didn't have the capability to do it here. The parks in Tulsa and the Garden Center require a fee to be able to shoot within their boundaries and that just rubs me the wrong way. They are tax supported entities here in town. So Morgan Pond was the was to get around the problem.

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