So there I am, pants soaking wet, at least a foot high of ice chunks piled next to me, holding the net with my hands tingling from the temperature, wondering how it came to this.
Let me back up.
Part of the charm of our new home was the lovely little pond out back. When you open the curtains in the bedroom, you can hear the fountain trickle, you can watch the rushes sway in the breeze, and if you're lucky, you can catch the orange glimmer of a shiny little koi.
But now, the snow has come. Temperatures have dropped, vegetation has died and the pond froze over. I forgot about the plight of the fish until my sweetie reminded me last week on the phone (he is currently out of town on business). Tired, exhausted, I left the fish to their fate, to slowly die as the pond froze deeper and deeper while the cold air turned water into ice.
I got home from work the next night. Made a lovely fire in the wood stove, enjoyed a bite to eat and settled in on the couch to watch a some TV before I got started on my evening's work. When suddenly, the image of fish freezing in the backyard flashed through my head.
I threw on my boots, grabbed a flashlight and went out to take a look. Yup, the pond was frozen alright. But was it frozen all the way down? I grabbed a rock and started to smash. Ice chips flew in my face, the rock fell out of my flimsy glove's grip but I was not about to give up hope. I grabbed a larger rock and took a swing at the pond. WHACK! I broke through. (Need I remind the reader that when a rock hits water, a rather large splash incurs? But I digress.)
I knew no rock would get the job done in a jif, so I went back into the house, grabbed the key to the shed and went hunting for the hammer.
Hammer in hand, I smashed until it seemed there was no more ice to smash. Then piece by piece, I began to scoop the ice out with my tiny net. This was going to take all night with the amount of ice I was scooping, and my pants were already starting to freeze to my legs. Oh yes, did I mention it was snowing?
I needed something quicker than the net. But of course, rubber gloves would do the trick! I ran inside, tried to find my rubber gloves to no avail and instead grabbed several plastic bags to wrap around my hands. Once again, I went to the back yard, got down on my hands and knees and scooped, and scooped, and scooped.
The ice must have been a couple inches thick and spread across the entire pond. By this point, I was quite certain no fish could be alive. Well, I figured, at least I could find the bodies of the five fish stuck under a rock or a chunk of ice.
I was nearing the end of the floating ice when my eyes beheld something I did not expect after all the ice I had to pound through. There, swimming from one side of the pond to the other, was a white and orange speckled fish. I grabbed the camera and snapped a picture. Unfortunately, that's all I got of the fish. I saw him, he was swimming, but he was not about to go into my net.
I tried in vain to catch him again, sweeping the net this way and that, even pounding and taking out more ice chunks around the edges. But the fish was no where to be found.
I decided to let the dirt settle to the bottom again and hopefully lure at least the one live fish to the surface with fish food. I prepared the tank inside and held off on my fish rescue attempts for another day.
