I received a call from a gentleman who asked if I knew of anyone that would be interested in the two Koi that were in his pond. He explained that he was calling for his Mother who wanted to close the pond down as it was too much work for her and was willing to give away the fish and the pond equipment to a good home.

I told him that I could take care of that for him and made arrangements to visit with him on a Thursday evening. I thought about hooking up my trailer but he didn’t think there was enough stuff to warrant it so I drove up to Round Rock with my fish net, a pump, a container to hold the rescued fish. Even though I thought I was early enough to beat the traffic, that was not the case as we moved along at a slow crawl all the way up Mopac.

James met me at the curb and took me back to the pond which was located in the rear corner of the yard. I met his Mother who was an elderly lady but very bright and talkative. I had brought a 3600 gallon pump and hose with  me and set the pump to lowering the water level as I looked at the rest of the pond. There were several large containers of Iris both yellow and purple, a large Horsetail and Pickerel. There was also a faux rock waterfall actually made out of fiberglass, which as I learned a little later on as we tried to move it, was very heavy. The pump was a little 800 gallon waterfall pump which might come in useful when I repair my Little Old Man Fountain.

This project was not like the last one and the son, James was not inclined to do anymore than necessary so I quickly figured out that it was not going to be a breeze like the last one where Jim did most of the work. I put on my rubber boots and jumped into the pond and immediately realized it had not been cleaned in a while and there was probably 6-8 inches of leaves and debris on the bottom. These hampered my fish catching operation as every time I chased a fish, I came up with a net full of rotting leaves. I managed to catch both fish, one of which I had to catch twice as it jumped out of the bucket the first time  and flopped around for a bit before jumping back into the water. From the bucket, they were placed in the container ready for transport. The fish, both Koi were a good size with one at about 24 inch and the other a little smaller. I am surprised that with all of the silt and rotting leaves in the bottom of the pond, the fish had made it this far as I would imagine that the nitrogen level in the water must have been pretty high.

Together, we worked the containers of Iris and Horsetail onto the lawn along with the faux stone waterfall. James, helped me struggle the thing from where it was set up on the back side of the pond onto the lawn not without a few missteps from me resulting with me falling onto my back into the pool of water collected onto the lawn that we had already pumped out of the pond and banging my head on the stupid thing.With cries of “I’m OK, I’m OK”, I scrambled to my feet much to the amusement  of James and his mother, we got the thing out of the pond and onto the lawn.

We bagged up the Horsetail and the 3 lilies that I had recovered and placed them and a few other things into my car and I took off for home. I planned on coming back the next day with the trailer for the remaining plants and the faux fountain. It was almost dark when I arrived back home but I knew that I had to get the 2 fish into one of the ponds before it got completely dark. I pulled the container that was now much heavier with the fish and the water in it, over to the 6000 gallon pond and placed the fish very carefully into the water. Both appeared OK and none the worse for the transfer.

True to my word, the next day  I drove what was now a very smelly car due to the previous evenings exertions  and now with the trailer hitched to it, back to Round Rock to be met by James’ Mother who opened the gate for me. I loaded out the remaining Iris and other plants and then  covering everything with a tarp which I lashed down and then put my dolly on to hold the tarp down. I struggled the waterfall onto the trailer placing it on the tarp as well.

I took one last look around making sure that I had everything there was to be had before closing the gate after saying good by to the lady of the house. I provided her with the name of a Handyman who could complete the task of leveling the rocks around the pond and generally tidying up the area.The drive home was uneventful and the traffic was not too bad. Everything is in the timing…

Next time, I will go with my gut instincts and hook up the trailer and save myself an extra trip.