The new year of koi shows has started up and it has been fun seeing the posts of friends at the koi shows in San Diego and Orlando. Koi people are very nice, generous and good natured. There might be a few bad apples but this hobby seems to attract a happy, eccentric crowd. The first koi show I will be going to this year is ZNA NorCal in San Jose. I have two little koi that I will be entering for fun. One is a Sakai kohaku and the other is a Watanabe kohaku. Both are sitting at Genki Nishikigoi in the conditioning tank.

Back in Little Siberia we continue to be living under winter conditions. There are some days that tease us by going up to 40 or so but the outdoor pond is still covered with some pretty thick ice. The pond builder likes to walk out on the pond and sweep off snow. I’m always worried he’ll fall through but the ice is at least 6 inches thick if not more.

We have had a few problems with the cold temperatures, even in the equipment house. One night the lights did not come on and the pond builder went to check out why. 10:30 pm and he’s out there for about 30 minutes. Turns out that one of the large 4 inch pipes from the pond cracked and we had at least two feet of water in the equipment house.

The pond builder will most likely wait until the temperatures are in the 50s to fix the pipe. We’ll have some other things to do before the koi go outside since we forgot to turn some of the handles on the valves of our manifolds. Both manifolds (upper and lower pond) ended up with some damage. The pond builder doesn’t seem to be irritated. I think he likes the idea of building something new. We’re still thinking about what the upper pond will look like this spring. The pond builder does not like pea gravel falling into the pond so he’d like to build wood decking around the pond edge. I’m not so sure.

So our little spring tasks are waiting for warmer weather. Replacing evergreens that didn’t make it this year, replanting the herb garden, picking out some more magnolia trees and most of all – I am looking forward to putting in a dahlia garden (actually the pond builder will be doing the hard work). We have a perfect spot on the south side of the house.

I decided that until my dahlias are blooming in about five or six months, I can enjoy the photos I took of dahlias at the arboretum. I made some coaster sets on Shutterfly this morning :

The koi are all doing well and seem hungrier as the temperatures go up. When I put the camera underwater, they are busy bumping my hand and nibbling on my fingers hoping that I have some Manda Fu for them. They’re doing a good job eating the algae on the pond surfaces – guess I should be feeding them more 🤣