| This is the current version of
my pond, created as a home for my turtles and now a home to fish as
well. My first two turtles, Mergenthaler and Garfunkel, came from people who didn't want them because they were too much work but liked them too well to just dump them. (Red-eared sliders can be a lot of work, especially if kept inside.) They quickly outgrew aquariums and moved into a wading pool on my porch. From there it was a short step to my first pond, lined with a blue tarp and filtered with an aquarium pump. The present version, about 3.2, has a proper liner, two pumps, and a subsidiary veggie filter pond which empties into the main pond via a little three-foot stream and a tiny waterfall. The main pond is bordered with wood, instead of the more traditional rock or brick, to make it safer for the turtles. Mergenthaler is now swimming in the stream that flows under the Rainbow Bridge, as is her son Slartybartfast, the first of their progeny to survive, though not long enough.  Garfunkel, however,
is still enjoying the pond. That's him basking on the rocks to the left
of the picture. Hiding from the camera are Gertha and Morgenstern, his
two new ladies. And in an aquarium in the house are Walkabout, Lastima,
and Guttenberg, some of the last of Mergenthaler's young, who will join
their father and others in the pond in the spring.Most of the fish are feeder goldfish that the turtles declined to dine on. They're now pets. In addition to the ten goldies, there are three shubunkin (sort of a calico goldfish), about a million minnows, and a huge catfish. The catfish was caught as a baby by people fishing. He was so cute that the woman put him in her aquarium where he stayed until he was too big. Now I'm wondering how long it will be before he's too big for the pond.  Last spring, before
Mergenthaler died in a search to find a new spot to lay eggs, I was
inundated with baby water turtles. Now I find I miss them. One of the
last to hatch was Lastima, who I accidentally dug up too early but who
managed to hatch anyway. That's a quarter next to her so you can judge
her size and a piece of the egg she just hatched from can be seen at
the lower right corner of the picture. Despite her rocky start, Lastima
is thriving and is bigger than her hatchmate Guttenberg. Bigger yet is
Walkabout, who managed to get away from the basking pan she and her
siblings were in and survived for months dug into the dirt under a
fence. I found her while digging up the nest Lastima & Guttenberg
were in. There have been many other babies who survived, but they are
all in new homes. |