Gary went for a ride!

That is my office window upper left!

What beautiful day in the garden today and before winter, the sludge that settles to the bottom in a small garden pond needs to be removed.  Well, my front pond - better known as my office entertainment center - has three wading pools for birds and a holding pond that is deep enough for a couple fish to live through the winter. 

This front pond started with 3 gold fish which are considered lucky and 3 is an auspicious number.  Several years later, I added some minnows after fishing and two of those minnows were really very small blue gills, a variety of sun fish.  After eight years, they've never produced young, have eaten the goldfish, and do a great job of keeping the mosquitoes at bay.  My daughter named them Barry and Gary Bluegill.  Barry will actually get 80% of his body out of the water for a worm. Not as cute as a dolphin, but he is really cute to me. 

So while scooping out the sludge, I look carefully to make sure that I don't accidentally catch a fish.  By the way, sludge is smelly, really smelly but also it is very rich in nutrients which is why it needs to be removed from the pond to save the oxygen in the pond.  With each scoop, I'd look carefully for movement and then dump it in the wheel barrow.  With a full load, I headed to the garden to dump this free fertilizer.  You guessed it, Gary, the small blue gill had been in the wheel barrow for who knows how long, swimming and breathing in the muck and now he was flopping around in my garden.  I carefully scooped him up and returned him to the pond.

So what does this have to do with business?  I think it is just as simple as don't throw out the baby with the bath water or if you dig enough in a pile of smelly stuff you might just find a prize.  Have a great weekend.