Lovely Water Lilies

 I forgot my phone at the brewery, but John was kind enough to let me borrow his.

I wanted to take a picture of my pond. When I went outside I saw that there was another water lily -- score-- just what I wanted to take a picture of. 

Ok - so really I was planning on taking a photo of the turtles but they were hiding. The fish have been hiding too - probably because that big heron was checking out the fish buffet the other night. I heard it squawking when we came home from work. 

Our friend gave us this water lily. He had lots of raccoons and they kept chomping it up. Usually my turtles eat them too, but I put it up in the top section on the pond so it has bloomed quite a few times this summer. 

Such beautiful flowers. And pretty leaves. The bright green leaves are actually some of the giant water hyacinths that are in the middle section of the pond. I need to give them a serious trim as they are huge and expanding far beyond the pond section they are in. 

But for today we will just enjoy the lovely yellow orange water lily. 

Day Two after Finding Little Fish

Well today I did not see the little fish. I certainly hope they are still there. I didn't have much time to sit and watch today though. Maybe they were hiding. The big fish were hiding at first today. They come out when I sprinkle the fish food.

The turtles were being good today. The last few weeks they would climb out of the pond and come towards me like they were going to nibble on my toes. I know they were looking for food. I've had to pick Tilly up several times and put her back in the pond. I make sure to sprinkle in turtle food so they can start eating right away. Skeeter tends to watch me. But Tilly has been charging straight ahead.

They do share each others food. The fish and turtle food are similar shape... but the turtle food is plain green and the fish food is bright colors. It looks pretty floating around the the pond. They all nosh it down pretty quick. The fish jump up and snatch the one piece of fish food... The turtles grab as much as they can stuff in their mouths.

Such fun pets to have.

Found Some Fish Today

I have a pond with 10 goldfish that are maybe 6 inches long. Mostly they are the typical gold colors but I have two that have white and one that has more black. I also have two red slider turtles. They are who I built my pond for actually. The goldfish are there to be their "friends". And it makes the pond more fun to watch. Although the turtles swim around quite a bit too.

Today when I was hanging out and feeding the turtles and fish, I thought I saw a little dark shape in the water... Then I saw another one. It was small goldfish. Maybe one inch long. Totally unexpected. How fun! I hope they make it. They must be pretty smart to have made it this far.

I have hiding places for the fish and turtles - which is good because I used to have 20 big goldfish but a blue heron stopped by for a few snacks for a couple of days a few months ago. I thought I had no fish at all, but they slowly reappeared when they stopped being so afraid.

Loving this pond. Peaceful and yet so full of life!