New additions...

When George first saw our water garden two weeks ago he asked, "Where are the goldfish?" We gave him the Reader's Digest version of the heartbreak of losing five or six fish and, then, three turtles in our first (smaller) water garden two years ago. Still... he planted a seed. Maybe we could keep some fish healthy in a larger tank. Larry went to the pet store on Sunday for birdseed; he came back with that AND three fish!

One is solid orange, one has white spots, and the third has stripes of black on his/her dorsal fin. Yesterday they were low-key and skittish as they were feeling out their new digs. Today, when the warm sun shone on the tank, two of them were swimming with abandon through their new habitat, no longer panicking if our shadows loomed over them. We hope the third will start showing the same vitality soon.

In the meanwhile, Margaret has been forbidden to name them - it's just too easy to get attached if you study their personalities and features enough to give them names. Hopefully they'll all become long-living members of our little menagerie. They sure are fun to watch! (We wish the vegetation in the garden weren't so sparse in these pictures, but before too long the "pond" should be looking lush again.)