March 28th

IT LIVES!

The goldfish.

Okay, you need a bit of background.

Twice now I have turned on the water to top off the water in my pond, and forgotten about it. Too much water into the pond. The first time I found one dead goldfish floating the next morning. The next time there were TWO floating. I didn't look too closely at them, assumed I'd killed them. A little later I went out and two more were floating. Okay, I've killed them all, I am a fish killer. When I went back out to start recovering the bodies, two of them had recovered and were swimming happily around the pond, and the other two weren't quite dead yet. They were floating on their sides, but their gills were working. They were trying not to die. I took those two out and put them in a bucket with water that had been standing for a few days-hopefully the nasty fish killing chemicals had dissipated. (The authorities keep telling us that it's safe to drink this water, but it kills fish!) One of them died soon after. This was my last fish from the original six goldfish put in the pond in June of 2000. I'm surprised he lasted this long, he had a big nasty tumor growing on his head. He survived both assaults on the pond by a Great Blue Heron, but succumbed to my forgetfulness. The other fish didn't die, so I decided to put it back in the pond since the other fish had recovered and perhaps the toxic threat was over.

That fish floated on its side or on its back for two days. Little gills flapping, mouth gasping, not dying. I considered fish euthanasia, but couldn't quite bring myself to kill the fish, and decided to let it die on its own schedule. Of course, if the PETA and HSUS wackos hear of this I will be condemned and picketed for causing the poor gold fish to endure horrific suffering because I didn't have enough courage to kill it, and how dare I even keep those poor little creatures in captivity when they should be swimming free somewhere to be eaten by bigger fish.

This morning the fish turned itself right side up, and rejoined the other fish swimming around the pond.

So, PETA-suck my carp!