Hillbilly Landscaping 101: The Fish Pond

My husband likes to decorate our yard. Most of the time it
turns out all right. The redneck fish pond is not one of his best
efforts. Oh, the area around the fishpond is OK. I'll even forgive
him for the little wrought-iron statue of Mr. and Mrs. Froggy
sitting on a park bench reading a book. I am not so fond of the
metal sunflower. But the real issue is the water in the fake pond.

We bought this molded plastic fake rock fish pond at Sam's Club,
the Wal*mart for city people. The drawing on the box made it
look attractive. The display in the store was cute. So Hubby
thought he could replicate it at home. Only we are rednecks, so
he didn't use the word replicate. I think he said, "That'll look
good by my deck." Because everything he talks about is his:
my house, my barn, my tractor, my sinkhole, my land, my creek.
I'm over that already.

The little area around the fish pond is kind of attractive. I would
rather have had all gravel instead of the wood chips, though.
Because we have 5 cats, and cats think the wood chips are some
exotic form of cat litter. And I heard from that Alan Smith on
KSDK Channel 5 news that wood chips attrack b-u-g-s, so
you should never put them around tree trunks. Huh! Then I
really didn't want them around my wooden support posts that
hold up my wooden deck that is part of my wooden wrap-around
porch to my cedar house. But Hubby didn't listen to my concerns
(how uncharacteristic of him!) and poured in the chips, not gravel.

For about a week the fish pond was fine. Then he started checking
the pH or something. I don't know why. He added chemicals like
chlorine and then something else because he put in too much
chlorine. And it went downhill from there. Our little pond grew
green scum. Then he dumped it and started over. He added some
Wal*mart goldfish. Because of an unfortunate chlorine accident,
they floated to the top and he had to buy more Wal*mart goldfish.
Then he had to buy a bunch of fish food, because the cats and dog
like to eat it, and knock it off the shelf and help themselves.

So the point (and I do have one) is that I do not like to look at
this nasty green water right off the deck from my kitchen door.
Hubby says it is just a little problem with the pump. He bought
another waterfall thingy for the pond, (against my advice), from
Lowes. So now we might get clear water, but the pond is gray
fake rock, and the waterfall is smooth black plastic.

As of tonight, the fish pond has been drained, and the fish are
in a plastic garbage can with the green water. I will post a new
picture when this project is completed.