Ponds, plants, and missing Kitty

This is a picture of our porch pond in the spring. We haul it out of the shed every spring, put it on the front porch, check for leaks, fill it with water, bring the goldfish out for the summer, and buy just a couple of plants to keep the water oxygenated, and to make the whole thing worth it. We used to put a pump/fountain in it each year, but I have replaced it twice in seven years and just never got around to the third needed replacement this year. Which is a bit sad as I really miss the sound of the moving water. You will note that there are three plants in this thing. The taller plant, a water hyacinth, is the one that gave us these awesome flowers.


This is what it looks like today. See all those plants? Yeah, they propagate like crazy all summer long. There are now seven of the water lettuce where there had been two. I also have four of the water hyacinth. Yeah, there is a reason these are classified as invasive non-native plants in a lot of places. I don't worry about them invading much since I keep them contained. They also won't winter over. The first year I brought the whole thing in to keep it gurgling away inside. Well, that didn't work very well for several reasons. DTE's cat, Kitty tried to drink out of it, but she fell in. I was not too crazy about a wet, long-haired cat running around the house! The next thing we learned was that Kitty did not like the plants. She would grab the plants and drag them all over the house, beating them up in the process. No matter how many times we put them back, or reduced the number of plants see if that helped, we would find a bedraggled water plant somewhere in the house within an hour after returning it to the water. All of those things, and the dogs banging the heavy ceramic pot into the wall and splashing water all over as they ran past it while playing tag, led to putting the pond pot in the shed, getting a bowl for the goldfish, and donating all the plants to the girl's high school biology lab.



The next fall when I brought the fish back in they had outgrown their bowl from the spring. Since I wouldn't want to live in a fish bowl myself, I kind of figured they might not either. (Like a goldfish really cares?)
Well I didn't want to have just a boring bowl to look at all winter, so I gussied up the new one a bit.

We have a frost warning for our area tonight so I might just need to move the fish into its winter home. I guess I could leave a plant in it this year since it won't drive Kitty crazy. I would really rather have her and no plants in the fishbowl. I would even be happy with water plants being drug all over the house. Besides, who is going to pet the goldfish this winter with out her here?