07.23.08
It’s raining, it’s fawning, and one of my koi is dying.
Well if you couldn’t tell, it rained today, last night too. It’s still raining now. We received over an inch last night. It was cloudy early this morning, but started to clear up around 9:00. I walked out to check on Daniel’s garden to see if there was any erosion, when I found two fawns grazing beneath the large white pine in the back yard. Mom was just inside the treelike in the woods behind our property. Mom didn’t see me because the pine was blocking her view. I went back into the house to grab my camera to get a photo to use with a poem I wrote, but when Mom saw me as I walked into the grass, she flicked her tail, the way mom’s do, and the kids came-a-runnin’, or galloping, or trotting, or whatever it is you call what it is deer do. So I had to settle for shots of the flora, as I walked around the yard taking pictures of shrubs and flowers.
When I came back into the house I downloaded them. I’d taken seventy-seven pictures. I got a few good ones of a bumble bee on some thistle growing along the front bank by the road, and a few shots of our first tomatoes that aren’t quite ready to pick. I also took some close-ups of the needles on a Douglas fir and clover in bloom. There’s also a couple nice ones of some of the annual bed plants Daniel planted around the herb garden. I can’t remember what they’re called though.
Around 1:30 this afternoon I was out at the pond and noticed the dragonflies were dancing their dance. I grabbed my camera and shot thirty-one pictures of them, but none in flight. I was able to sneak up on one after trial and error. They’re skittish things and would take off from the weeping birch at the first sign of my approach. I used a limb from the tree as cover and got some great shots of one resting on a leaf as I focused through an opening in the foliage. I attempted a few shots of them joining in flight, but all you see is a blur of green as I tried to follow them through the view finder. My digital camera is too slow to respond from the moment I snap the button until the shutter responds. By the time the electronic eye focuses, they were already headed towards the sky. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
Around 4:00 this afternoon a light rain started again. I fed the fish at 5:00 and right after they finished eating, one of the females started swimming strangely. She as well as all the koi in the pond were spawned there nearly ten years ago, so I’ve had them all since they were eggs. All their parents died the following late spring after an extremely hard winter that lasted two months longer than usual. I’ve been worried about her since the pond thawed this past spring. She had a bad case of carp pox, the equivalent to human cold sores. The pox look like candle wax that’s been dripped on the side of the fish. Once the water warms up, their immune systems become active and the pox go away, until the next year that is. She’s also had a orange/red blush along her flanks, but she never came close enough to the water edge for me to get a good look at it.
Until today, she’s been eating well and swimming normally. It’s almost impossible to net one of the koi in the pond without injuring them. She’s full of eggs, I mean she’s huge, and she hasn’t ever spawned. It’s possible she has an ovarian tumor also. This can happen in a female who hasn’t spawned in a few years. The females reach maturity about two years before the males, but they’re all old enough to spawn now. Perhaps the spawning goldfish are releasing too many hormones into the water, or it could be that the pond is too heavily stocked. I know that there is a hormone released by fish, that when it reaches a certain level, it will retard their spawning if the body of water isn’t large enough to support a new generation.
Well after feeding time she started swimming in spirals and jumping out of the water, then she’d dive down to the bottom. I wouldn’t see her for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. The rain stopped a few minutes after 6:00, just in time for me to put salmon and swordfish on the grill for dinner. I know, I’m grilling fish, and worried about a fish, go figure.
While the fish was cooking I returned to the pond and there she was again, looking even worse. I’ve been through this before and based on my observations over the years, I anticipate she’ll be dead within two days. I hope I’m wrong. Tomorrow will tell the story.
It’s nearly midnight and right now it’s pouring outside. Lightening is lighting up the sky and the yard. We’re currently under a flood watch. This is the kind of weather the fish love because of the insects that are knocked into the water. I’m afraid my old girl isn’t enjoying them very much.
O.P.W.