{"id":12984,"date":"2026-05-31T10:21:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T22:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/?p=12984"},"modified":"2026-05-31T10:21:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T22:21:51","slug":"pond-update-end-of-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/pond-update-end-of-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Pond update end of May"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mystery mass die-off appears to have ended.<\/p>\n

We never managed to find a pond expert to come and sort us out, but in lieu of that, our very game builder did his best. Apparently he joined several \u00a0Facebook pond interest groups and everything. The most obvious problem was that the solar pump was no longer working, so he got an electrician in to replace it. That seemed to help, and the water did start looking much clearer, but I was still dubious because the builder said he found this bit of pipe at the bottom of the pond that wasn\u2019t attached to anything, so he just took it out. It\u2019s lying on the side of the pond still.
\n\"\"Well, I\u2019m no expert either, but doesn\u2019t this look like a filter thingy that might be helpful in some way? In any event, while musing a plan for going forward, and in the absence of a corpse of poor Mudwiggle, I\u2019ve been continuing to sprinkle in the occasional fish food. Not the one that was so unpopular with his departed comrades, either, but rather the fish flakes that I so foolishly abandoned earlier in the year. Well, blow me down of if I didn\u2019t spot Mudwiggle looking hale and hearty, if a little skittish, one night last week. This brought two things to mind. One was that the pond was now clearly capable of sustaining life, and two, that the poor thing must be lonely, and still probably traumatised by the seemingly systematic extermination of his pond mates. We determined then to buy him some more friends. Sorry, but this is what I\u2019ve been leading up to this whole post, in my typical circumlocutory fashion.<\/p>\n

I was too embarrassed to go back to the last pet shop, too afraid of close questioning in the event that they recognised me. Off to Animates it was then, last Wednesday. I took a different offspring with me this time, not deliberately but rather as a result of availability on the day. Even though they\u2019re all students, it isn\u2019t always possible for them to drop everything to help their poor mother out, or so I\u2019ve been told. The offspring are all generally helpful in this sort of situation, but they do share one weakness, which is choosing the most hideous loser fish that you could possibly imagine would be available for purchase. To my credit, although I\u2019m still second guessing myself, I refused to buy the nasty flesh coloured nightmare that was Samantha\u2019s first choice, and we settled on these two.<\/p>\n

\"\"My one, on the right, is quite unexceptionable, but Samantha\u2019s second choice still has a couple of disturbing features. One is the weirdly shaped pupil, or possibly strangely pigmented iris, which you can see in the above photo. The other is the black mark in the top lip, weirdly reminiscent of an infamous historical figure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"We have named them Adolf and Eva. One offspring rudely suggested on the family chat that it was to protect our feelings in the event of an early demise of one or the other (or both), a comment which I found needlessly hurtful. I should possibly point out, though, that we poured some more gravel into the pond just before introducing the new fish, and poor Mudwiggle hasn\u2019t been seen since. It would be sadly ironic if he should be buried under a landslide just before finally being able to meet some new friends. I wonder if a pond can be haunted?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mystery mass die-off appears to have ended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-3nq","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12893,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/23\/better-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12984,"position":0},"title":"Better","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 23, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"As is often the case, a bit of time and distance has given me some perspective about my pond issues. It\u2019s still sad that so many fish have died, but my dance teacher, who lives in Island Bay, told me this evening that she knows five families who have lost\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5986-768x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5986-768x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5986-768x1024.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12365,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/26\/pond-update-october-25\/","url_meta":{"origin":12984,"position":1},"title":"Pond update October \u201925","author":"Interloper11","date":"October 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Our goldfish count reached a nadir of two some months ago with the mysterious disappearance of the pale and ethereal Edward. It really is a head scratcher. Where did he go? It\u2019s not like he could have popped out for a quick walk and got lost. And if he\u2019d died,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_4011-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1457,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/08\/pond-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":12984,"position":2},"title":"Death Fish","author":"Interloper11","date":"January 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"One of our pets has gone missing. Quasi, short for Quasimodo, named for his rather misshapen physique, is an ugly googly eyed black goldfish, although he does (did) have a rather lovely swishy long tail. You\u2019d think there aren\u2019t many places a goldfish could wander off to in a little\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/B3856888-358C-4806-8B15-15C1ECA5ADE7-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12887,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/pond-update-april-22\/","url_meta":{"origin":12984,"position":3},"title":"Death Fish","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 22, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, things have gone from bad to worse. I came back after the weekend away to find the two new little fish had died. Since they were nameless and unbaptised, they will remain forever in purgatory (or is it some other in-between place? My theology is a bit rusty on\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/pond-update-april-22\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5966-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1675,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/14\/pond-life-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":12984,"position":4},"title":"Pond Life – update","author":"Interloper11","date":"February 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A miracle in our pond! A brand new little fish has appeared. Our working assumption is that they have somehow had babies but Jackie, the biggest meanest fish we have, has eaten the rest. The new fish is very tiny - about 15 mm long - and we are nervous\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/201BB25F-A718-403D-90FD-D6F448EA06CA-225x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12841,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/12\/pond-update-april-2026\/","url_meta":{"origin":12984,"position":5},"title":"Pond update April 2026","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 12, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"In an act of the purest optimism, we have replaced Fanny the goldfish RIP with two new fish. This in spite of the fact that the pond is still somewhat murky and we haven\u2019t really got to the bottom of the unpopular fish food. The story goes like this: I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5871-1024x768.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5871-1024x768.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5871-1024x768.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}