If you build it, they will come!
Howdy , Wouldn't you know it..... as soon as school was over my summer plans for "a little keyboard heaven" were replaced by my wife's announcement that we (meaning I) were going to build a Koi pond. For those of you who know bullheads, minnows, suckers, shad and carp but don't know Koi, a Koi is just a carp that looks like it was swimming in a pallet of paint when the artist sneezed. These fish have been bred for centuries in the Orient and each fish will cost somewhere between $8.00 and $100.00, depending upon its size, breed and markings. I have heard it said that Koi ponds are the big "Yuppy" thing these days and my wife had decided that we could not live without one....... I won't go into all the mounting expenses of a pond liner, filters, pump, motor, wiring, conduit, or the cost of the snooty spotted carp, but I would like to have it on record that my first reaction to her plans went something like this:
"Do you have any idea what it is going to be like When that one didn't make a dent in her plans, I tried this one:
"I did that kind of manual labor for the first thirty I should have known that one wouldn't have any effect on her direction, either. Next, I priced renting a "Ditch Witch. We (I) quickly opted for the traditional shovel, telling myself that it might be nice to see my toes again and the hours of digging in the front yard might just do the trick. Well, after several weeks of morning, evenings (and a few noon day Texas suns) in the hole, we placed the liner and filled it with water. Our two teenage girls had a great time swimming in the cool liquid in the first two days until the water started going to the green and then to brown. At about the same time my "Darling" showed up with a grin on her face and her arms full of water plants and plastic bags of fish. I was busy working on the waterfall, the wiring and the pump but took note that every frog and toad in the dusty South Texas County of Wilson must have heard about the miracle in the Fromme's yard......you know..... water strangely appearing in the desert. "Oh, Boy....Time to party." or whatever jumping little Texas critters say. Not long after the big "South Texas Toad and Frog Jam" strange little jello looking slime could be found on everything. Yip, the stuff was everywhere. It was in the folds of the liner, in the plants, along the rocks which lined the pool. You name it, there were toad and frog eggs clustered there. Next in the saga, we had the waters turning black with "polliwogs". Wiggly little dots are everywhere. You can't even see the fish for the Wogs. What were we going to do? If each of those little things came to term the frogs would probably be the death of us and the neighbors, too. As if the Wogs were not enough of a problem to ponder, the darned waterfall was leaking water behind the liner by that time. The rubber liner began to sag and wave along the walls of the pond, suggesting that soon the water on the outside the liner would cause the edges of our "Polliwog Heaven" to turn to mud, cave in, and ruin it all. Several days of frantic work with QuickCrete, and trowel had the leaking stopped and another strange thing was afoot. The polliwogs were not quite so thick in the "Black Soup" we called our Koi pond. It was at that time that I began to notice the snakes. At first, it was a single racer swimming quietly across the pool. Later in the day, there were two working the edges of the pond, sweeping polliwogs off the liner with their bodies and tails while they sucked them in like little burnt bits of popcorn. Well, I need not tell you much more. It has been several days since the first snake and we now have so many of the silent, slithering "polliwog eaters" coming and going at all hours of the day and night that we can not keep track. Yes, several times each day a multitude of these silent, slithering , creepy, cat eyed, guests come to the yard pool for a swim and a polliwog luncheon, compliments of the Fromme's. This is one of those stories that has no end. I can tell you that I am not looking forward to the experience of changing the filters which are located deep in the bottom of the snake infested pond. One also understands why my two teenaged daughters have lost much of their enthusiasm for our project. I have never been fond of snakes and my skin begins to crawl every time I seem them working the edges of the pond or moving back out into the yard after their time in the pool. The little racers have a way of bringing me back some thirty years to a time and place where the snakes had names like "bamboo viper" and "cobra" among those of several other exotic messengers of Southeast Asian death. Come to think of it, I believe I will just learn to be happy with our new yard pets, it could be a lot worse and besides, when the polliwog population drop, the snakes may also go...... Hope...... Hope........... At any rate, with first the frogs, then the polliwogs and now the snakes, it all gives new meaning to the thought that... "If you build it ....they will come." However, our yard, complete with snake pit, is certainly not a "Field of Dreams" anymore. Bob Fromme
p.s. (several weeks later) I am happy to report that my darling wife has been delighted by her new koi pond, snakes and all.
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