Soon after we moved into this house, we were given an old half-barrel that had, at one time, been a small fish pond. However, it had been standing empty for ages and had dried out to such an extent that we could see slits of daylight between the planks! We didn't know if the old pump still worked, and probably the best thing to do with it was fill it with soil and plant herbs in it! However, we like a challenge, so Rob filled it with water and gradually over a few days, the wood swelled and the barrel stopped leaking. And, amazingly the pump still worked! So we decided to buy a few goldfish. I had been given an old gieter or watering can, and Rob rigged this up with rope and cable ties so that the water flowed into the gieter and out through the spout back into the barrel!
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| A Malechite male sunbird bathing at the gieter. |
And it worked! We bought a few fish and left them to it. The only problem was, the water turned green within a few days and although we regularly changed it, using the pond water for the garden and filling it again from the rainwater tanks, we could hardly ever see the fish through the murk and algae! And after a bad start when we lost a few fish, the remaining two flourished! Eventually they were so big that they could literally only swim in a circle, and we felt really bad that they couldn't see where they were going! Even though they really weren't going anywhere!
So, we decided to buy ourselves an early Christmas present in the form of a new pond complete with filter and UV light! Rob ordered one from a company in Cape Town, and a couple of weeks ago, off we set to fetch it. Luckily it just fitted into the back of the Nissan, we thought we may have to put Alfie in it on the way home, but he sat on my lap and fidgeted all the way!
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| Let the games begin! |
