Good intentions.

What is that saying?  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.   In my case it should be the road to and from Eddies Aquarium Supply store.

Remember the pond fish?  In our first story most of them were eaten by a heron.    In our second the remaining pair were fruitful and multiplied, giving us about 100 baby fish.   Fish I’m not sure would survive the hard freeze on the pond the way the bigger ones do.

My brilliant idea?   Aquarium!   Bring them inside!  Save the fish!.

We began shopping for an aquarium.   This is a little like shopping for a new chair for your living room.    The new chair looks great but the couch now looks shabby so it needs replaced too….

We decided we needed a furniture quality stand since the aquarium would be in our main living area.    We found a very nice one online and ordered it.   I noticed my credit card felt warm in my hand.

Once it arrived we knew we needed a 90 gallon aquarium so off we went to our local fish supply store.    Aquarium,Led lighting,  filter, air bubbler, decorations, etc.   The credit card began to glow.  Back and forth to the fish supply store several times.    The credit card started smoking and burst into flames.     About this time I noticed that the store was selling baby fish this size for 0.16 cents each.    100 fish at 0.16 cents each equals $16.   I decided not to mention that to my husband.

The set up took us three evenings to complete but in the end the aquarium looked great and was ready to receive the rescues.     The theme song from “The Jeffersons” began playing in my head .   “Movin’ on up”

Did I mention the fish are in the P-O-N-D?   Did I mention it is very cold outside and the water temperature is too?    The  fish should be a  little slow and I thought that would make them much easier to catch.

Nope.

Picture my husband in his fly fishing waders.   Now picture him standing in the middle of our fairly shallow 10 x 8 ft fish pond with a net.     Picture me standing at the end of said pond with another net.    I’m the pusher, he is the catcher.    I push the fish and he……….wait……….no they swim up , down and around.     I push again, he manages to catch the two large parent fish (we didn’t intend to put them in the aquarium but what the hell).
After several rounds of this we manage to catch  18 fish . ( 18 fish at 0.16 cents each equals $2.88)    We transfer them in to the waiting aquarium.  We  ooh and aah appropriately, pat ourselves on the back  and sit back to relax.

 But wait,  the parent fish don’t seem to like the space.

They don’t settle in the way the smaller fish do.    In fact they are busy uprooting all the plants and chasing the baby fish.  Back to the pond they go.  They survived last winter and I hope they will survive this one.

Finally all is calm.

Now I have to get busy and name all the rescues.     May I present to you:   Fancy Nancy.           

She is definitely worth more than 0.16 cents.