A Weekend for fish

So much rain fell this past weekend, everyone was talking about building an ark! Experts have now announced the drought of the past several years is officially over. Doug and I picked this lovely weekend to drain and dismantle a fish pond.

The people who are renting/buying our house in Oconee County did not want the fish since they won’t be there all the time to take care of them. They are taking possession of the house April 1st. We agreed to find the fish another home and fill in the pond. (This was sad, especially for Sean who dug the pond for me for my birthday one year.) Although the Avants said there was no hurry, it is getting warm, and the fish needed to be fed, so we decided to get it done this weekend after the weather forecast showed a break in the rain for the afternoon.

The forecast was wrong. We drove the two and a half hours down there in nonstop rain. When we arrived, we had lunch with former neighbors. Joanne had made a delicious homemade lasagna which we enjoyed immensely. The rain still had not stopped after we finished dessert and coffee, so we sat and talked with Joanne and Ferris for another hour. Finally, the rain slowed to a drizzle, and we went to the house to begin what would prove to be a difficult, dirty job.

We donned our rain jackets and put our hoods over our heads. I pulled the hose off the outer pump so water could drain onto the ground beside the pond. It drained very, very slowly. The ground had already been saturated with several inches of rain, so the water from the pond turned the ground into a mud bath. Doug and I soon looked like we had been mud wrestling! We moved all the heavy stones away from the edge of the pond so we could pull up the liner once the water was gone. We used two five gallon buckets to dip water out while the hose was draining. Occasionally, the rain got heavy enough to drive us back into the garage.

Once the water finally got fairly low, I filled the two buckets about a third of the way full of pond water and started trying to catch the fish with my net. It was impossible. The water slowed the net down, but not the fish! They got away every time I tried. We realized we would have to drain almost all the water before we could get to them.

Meanwhile, we pulled the potted plants out of the water. The lilies weren’t hard, but I had about three pots of water irises that had all merged together in one gigantic mass of roots and stems. Waterlogged, it weighed a ton! Doug and I struggled with it several times before we finally pulled it out.

We had a dinner date for that evening, and time was running out, but I felt we had to move the fish at this point since so much of their water was gone. Finally we got down to the place where the fish really had no place to go and I could net them out. The water by this time was red, and I couldn’t see the fish at all. I just kept dipping until I couldn’t get any more. The fish went into the five gallon buckets, which we put in the back of the RAV and drove to my friend Susan’s house. They were dumped into her pond to wait until my sister Cindy can get her pond up and running and come get them.
From there, we drove straight to Ken and Vivian’s house. We arrived dirty and wet and went to take showers before we ate the great steaks they had grilled. We had a wonderful evening with friends before retiring to bed.

Sunday morning the rain was gone, but a cold front had moved in. We had to return to the house to remove the liner from the pond. It had rained during the night, putting more water back in. We started the pump draining again. As the water got lower, it somehow got under the liner. We pulled and pulled off and on for a good hour before we finally got it out. Then I dismantled the external filter and hosed off the liner. Meanwhile, Doug dug up a large cedar tree that had been ruined by the recent snow storm.

By the time we were done, we were cold and dirty. We loaded the last of our things into the RAV and drove to Sean’s house to get a pet crate for Little Bit. We finally returned home, tired and ready for a hot shower.

On the bright side, we had a good time eating a bagel and cream cheese at Panera Bread with Ken and Vivian that morning. We sat and talked for a long time. Then we went to Wal-Mart to buy pet supplies. After that, we met Rod and Marlene to eat lunch at Rachel’s, and Rod insisted on treating us. It was so good to see them. So we worked hard, ate well, and enjoyed good friends – not a bad weekend after all.