The pond directly in front of me is the 1500 gallon pond currently scheduled to be filled in. I had drained it once before but the rains since have refilled it even though I punched holes in the bottom of the liner. I guess I need to make the holes bigger and not just holes created by the use of a four tined garden fork. Funnily enough, even though the pumps have been shut down, somehow, the previous tenants that occupied the the pond, a mix of Goldfish and Koi managed to produce some offspring and there are about twenty or so small fish actively swimming around, of both varieties.

There are two more ponds, a two thousand gallon goldfish pond and the biggest one of all, a six thousand gallon Koi pond in which most recently I had a fish die off due to the fuses blowing after a pump failure causing the water to overheat in this Texas summer. It was very sad to see nine of those very big fish floating on the top of the pond. Several were probably between twenty five and thirty years old and weighed in between fifteen and twenty pounds. Such are the hazards of keeping fish ponds here in Texas. Incidentally, as far as I can see, there are only three baby Koi in this pond and they are all around eight inches in length.

Now that it has cooled down quite considerably, I have been working out in the garden trimming back a lot of this years abundant growth which included both the plants and the small areas of grass that remain. Luckily, my drive upon mower takes care of most of the grass but it does require going at it with a weed eater to finish the job. It seems like every time that I jump on the mower and cut the outside grass, I get itchy legs due to the poison ivy mixed in with the grass. There are only a few poison ivy plants but that it all it takes for one that wears shorts every day.

Much of the yard is covered with a ground cover of the Star Jasmine variety which if left unattended, tends to take over vast areas whether wanted or not. It needs to be kept under control but because of the thin vine like nature of the plant, is difficult to cut back with a weed eater as it tends to tangle with the cutting drum. Trimming back the growth of the remaining plants is a different proposition and requires a lot of manual labor both in the cutting back and in the clean up.

All of this is a part of the preparation to eventually sell the house depending on how well the new RV, if it ever gets here, works out. The plan is to go full time RV’ing for at least a couple of years as long as I am fit enough to do it and of course still able to drive safely. After that, who knows. If I can’t take care of myself in an small RV then I certainly will not be able to in a house and if I get that incapacitated, then ship me off to an old folks home. I won’t care either way by then…

Written 10/06/2020