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I have a koi in North Carolina!

Posted by lorivertin on

Well technically it’s not on my farm but in a friend’s quarantine tank about 30 miles away. It’s a little yuki asagi that I purchased when Russell Peters of PSKoi went to Japan, January 2021. He was one of the few dealers to get in this year and had to quarantine for 14 days prior to looking around for koi. The yuki asagi has been behaving like a male but I am still hopeful that it will be a female. I’m going with the name Akemi which my son suggested for this koi.

I really have bought very few koi the last two years in preparation for the move south. The pond builder will be driving eleven koi south in a few weeks and six koi will stay in the Minnesota pond. This weekend he was busy opening up the northern pond. He refilled during the week and today PP’d the pond of heebie jeebies. The waterfall is running and the garden is finally coming out of winter. The mallard ducks have also been visiting the pond lately, just some bachelors…

Genkikoi had a corn tosai event the other week and it’s always fun to take a chance. Probably a waste of money but it’s like buying a lottery ticket. Taniguchi (breeder) selected 26 corn koi tosai and we were entered into a drawing. Bad luck, my draw number was 24 out of 26 and I ended up with my 15th choice. The only thing about corn tosai is that it really is all luck what it will look like in a few months. The tosai will be kept at Taniguchi through harvest and if any are deemed promising, the opportunity of azukari will be offered.

Taking care of the farm is endless. The area we recently cleared and found all sorts of old items will now be our future koi pond. It will take some time but we will gradually fill in with plants and dig the permanent koi pond. I planted some lavender colored azaleas in a corner and used old well bricks to make some scalloped edging. The farm has lots of moss so I spent some time packing moss between bricks to speed up the aged effect. I continue to water the sorted bricks to keep the moss alive.

the future koi pond

The old farm items left in this area have started going up on the barn wall. It seems a better idea than storing them in containers. I’m really not too concerned if pieces are unidentifiable. I just tend to group like-ish items together. We have the original barn remains in another area of the property that we hope to find more weird stuff later this summer.

We have found a lot of pop bottles and coke seems to be the favorite (or maybe the bottles are just sturdier…) From L-R: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Royal Crown, Double Cola and Lotta Cola.

Planting a variety of edibles seems like fun but the associated chores like watering, caging and uncaging, monitoring for pests, etc. take up a lot of time.

New trellis for the bean plants and cucumbers. Need to figure out how to keep yu choy and pak choy from bolting. Too much watering and temperature fluctuations make them crazy. I have been enjoying the French breakfast radishes, a small variety of daikon and cilantro always comes in handy.
The western fruit trees (pear, peach, persimmon) have been uncaged and I am crossing my fingers the deer will not mess with them. I did notice a large deer near the north forest – which is not too far from this group of trees. The east orchard has some apple trees and plum trees. It would have made my watering task much easier if we had planted all the fruit trees in the same area.
These are Catawba grapes (named for the county I live in) – good for wine, jams and jellies. I’m not sure if these will stay in front of the barn. Once again, I decided to place them someplace where they could be easily watered and monitored.
The thornless blackberries are growing and they will also be moved next year. I’m assuming that similar to raspberry canes, they end up going pretty wild all by themselves.

Between chores, planning for the koi and work – I also have time to explore all the weird little insects, lizards, birds etc. that are all over the place. I’ve been obsessed with holes lately. I noticed there was a new hole in my new porch furniture this morning. (I actually saw a pile of wood dust on the porch floor). There was a fresh carpenter bee hole so I decided to fill it with some wood glue. I now have a dead carpenter bee glued to the leg of the furniture. Perhaps it will serve as a warning to others that will ry to eat a hole through my furniture.

I will say the farm is endless fun and very pretty. There are always interesting new flowers and plants to identify. The hay seems to grow an inch a day and I love the sound of birds everywhere. It will be just about perfect once my koi come home.

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