The forecast has already pulled back on how much snow we should get and how soon we should see it. This happens a lot here. Regardless, it's still super cold out there, so certain winter maintenance had to happen right away. We are new to this whole fish pond concept, so we let ours go as late as possible while we made our cold weather plans. Yesterday I bought a big plastic storage tub, with the intention of making that the winter home of nine fat goldfish. Actually going through with the capture and release process was a whole other story, though. We weren't sure how to accomplish it yesterday, so when we came home from the volunteer project, we were more interested in naps than chasing fish around murky water with a net.
Naturally the cold weather blew in overnight, and we went from being comfortable outside in long-sleeved t-shirts to needing to bundle up a little more. We still had to stick our hands in frigid water, but thankfully there was a large quantity of much warmer water available for later in the day. I'm going to throw down my criticism early: the Mr should NOT have scooped out rocks and sand from the bottom of the pond first. It made catching anxious fish much more difficult. We had to yank back a lot of the creepy Jenny they were hiding in to locate them, and we chased them round and round with the net. Eventually we found all nine, but it took more than an hour, and the two of us had to tag team on fish hunting. I regret not taking at least one picture of a fish caught in the net, but I felt so bad for them every time they came out of the water, looking startled and unhappy, that I immediately dunked them into the water in the tub.
The Mr planned ahead and put the temporary fish tub in the wheelbarrow, so that once it was populated, we could move it into the garage without killing ourselves. Good idea. One hundred points to House Smith. Just lifting my side of the half-full tub from the wheelbarrow to the little table we had in the garage to keep it off the floor was challenging for me. The larger pond pump stayed in its setup outside, but we had some older, smaller pumps that ought to hold us for the winter. We had some leftover screen that we will use to guarantee no mammal paws go fishing while they are in the garage unsupervised. Elsa and Murray sleep out there on their regular beds (if you didn't already know, it's insulated and heated), and Harvey has an annoying habit of zipping out between Mr S-P's feet when he goes out to put the dogs to bed. He's stayed out there several nights in the last month. He seems quite upset when breakfast time rolls around and he is still there.
I have to hope that over the course of the winter, the garage is cool enough to keep the goldfish comfortable, while staying warm enough that the old dogs are cozy in their beds. I imagine the fish can handle it a little warmer, so the dogs win that battle, paws down.
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