Wish List

Wish List

All our married life I have longed for a water feature in our yard.  Be it a fountain, spurting bird bath, pond or faux waterfall, it’s been on my “someday I’d like…”wish list.  Our first house had the makings of one but the Big Guy soon dismissed the possibility and ripped it out.  Our second home is seated in dense shade. Over thirteen gigantic deciduous oak and maple trees continually drop seeds, acorns, branches and oh so many autumn leaves, so he ruled that out as well.  Add to that the fact that any neighbor that has a pond loses their expensive koi fish to several local hungry herons…. okay, okay, I get his point.  

I was pretty tickled when we toured the small courtyard of our China villa and saw, you guessed it, a water feature!  This man-made pond is encircled with local geological rock forms that look to be centuries old.  They aren’t really attractive to me, but they’re historically geological to the area, which I find significant.  A little research has uncovered that these rocks are called *Taihu (Lake Tai rock.)

Sadly, the ponds bubbler does not work and the Big Guy purports the pond leaks and he can’t find the faucet for it anyhow.  Sad.  So now, three weeks into living here, I putter in my Secret Garden and sulkily look at the murky evaporating pond water and wish the darn thing were fixed.  After all, it takes up a substantial piece of the courtyard for something that is completely useless.  Again, Sad.  Late spring through early autumn is said to be extremely humid and hot here.  I’m not looking forward to a burgeoning mosquito population that breeds in the still water. 

One morning leaning over the pond as in a fairy tale I saw more than my reflection. “Wait a minute,” I said to myself, “What’s that bright leaf doing there in the pond?” Instead of a leaf I saw a six-inch neon orange koi.   I blinked and it disappeared. I’d say it swam away but I didn’t see that happen nor did its movement in the shallow water even ripple the surface.   It was just gone and all that stared back at me was my reflection.  So, I saw it once, but I did see it!  

This sighting may be just what I need to cast my net and get the Big Guy to repair the pond!  Maybe if I name that fish he’d be even more prone to put on some waders to repair the water feature I feel I must have thus subsiding my thirty plus years of an unfulfilled wish. 

You can help by entering the contest below:

Name that Fish!    Yú de míngchēng

·         Help me name the six-inch neon orange koi found in our pond.

·         Place your entry in the Comment section of this blog.

·         Winners will be selected by a panel of judges in Nanjing, China.

·         Grand Prize – A Postcard from China sent directly to YOU!

Thanks for Reading!

Cricket      

*Taihu (Lake Tai rock) -A single piece of rock, naturally formed, from Lake Tai (in the Yangtze Delta Plain, China). Great rocks, sculpted by the water of the lake, adorned the historic gardens of the scholar-officials for two thousand years. The naturally-occurring holes promote the flow of Chi ("Vital Breath" - life-force).