Poor Fishies

I got up early today to take The Childrens sledding. It was supposed to get up to 47 today (and I think it did), so we were expecting the snow to mostly disappear by later. Hence, getting up early.

When I looked out the bedroom window, I noticed that it sure looked like the back fishie pond was completely frozen over and that neither waterfall was running. I hustled outside and discovered that it was true. Poor fishies.

We had just added 11 goldfish to that pond last weekend, all prizes from the 4-H carnival (and only one of which has thus far turned up dead, stuck to the pump intake. And we had roughly 8 fish in there already, so the possibility of a massive winter fish kill was upon us.

I noticed that it sure seemed like the pumps weren't running, in addition to the heaters not heating, so I checked the breaker. The GFI was tripped. I reset it, and it stayed on.

I got out the pickaxe (or, as I like to call it, the marriage counselor) and busted up all the ice. The fishies were all there at the deep part looking fishie-like without a care in the world.

Tragedy averted.

The ice is all gone now. I wonder if this thing is going to start tripping all the time. GFI's don't last forever. It's also possible that snow got into one of the non-water-tight connections (one of the pumps and heaters is run on an extension cord from an improperly-installed outdoor outlet that isn't sealed to the weather - one of my fix-it projects for this summer).

The Childrens had fun sledding. They had the hill to themselves for the first two hours, then they had a neighbor kid there for the final 45 or so minutes. By then, the main sledding area was mostly mud, and they had to move off to the lower part of the hill where mostly they just played in a snow drift.

Buddy the robin flew out of the garage on Friday morning, so we're back down to 9. Well, 29 if you count the fish.

Last night, The Mrs. noted how funny my blog used to be, and then she took credit for it. She said, "Back then, I was so tired that I was just angry all the time. That made your blogs funnier."

So, she's vowed to become a big, giant biotch again in order to push me deeper into my art. Good thing I have the marriage counselor in the garage.