I am so thankful that I no longer live in Little Siberia (Minnesota). Earlier this week, Minnesota was shutting down under the threat of 20 inches of snow. Meanwhile, on the farm, the chickens were enjoying 70° weather…and the pond builder and I were almost uncomfortably warm in Fort Worth, Texas. Punxsutawney Phil may have…
Author: lorivertin
I won some koi food …
which is really a nice thing since the koi food I purchase is about $8.00 per pound. Last month I was texting a koi dealer, Taro Kodama to thank him for letting us use a reference chart on the Kodama Koi Farm website. A few days later he texted me that he had found a…
Tamago Kake Gohan (TKG)
The first farm egg finally showed up two days ago. Today I had some tamago kake gohan (TKG) for the first time in decades. Raw egg over hot rice – super yummy! When I was young, we purchased our eggs at a local egg farm. Eventually they closed and we had to buy our eggs…
21 months and we’re at another milestone
Friday, January 6, 2023 was a big day. Concrete work for the koi pond is finally done! There might be some more random concrete in the future but our pond walls and lower half of the equipment house are finally finished It took us about six months to decide where our last koi pond was…
Pond Story 2022
We really had high hopes to have a completed pond by Memorial Day 2022. That idea became the 4th of July Pond. Then we were hoping for a Halloween Pond. I believe I can safely say that our pond should be complete in Spring 2023. My koi will have spent almost two years in our…
Messy but we’re making progress
Between rain, our schedule, the concrete contract’s schedule – progress on the pond is quite slow. We are finally seeing the end of the tunnel for concrete work. It’s been very cold in North Carolina and this morning we were below freezing at 27°! Our concrete contractor did not want to pour today hoping the…
18 months (and we’re still not done)
Our pond walls were finally poured today. A huge hurdle we have finally crossed. Just getting the pond area cleared took us about a year. We were distracted with all interesting things we were digging up. We found a concrete guy who agreed to take on our project. The concrete bottom was poured, not entirely…
Work on the Koi Pond has resumed
“Did you guys plan on doing this while I was visiting?” asks the pond builder’s son as he toils away today. No we didn’t, but thank goodness the pond builder’s son was hanging around the farm in between his Army assignments. We hired the Octaform consultant to come out for two days to help us…
If a tree falls in the forest
and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Hmmmm, do we really care? Depending on where it falls, there’s a major clean up involved. On Monday, a tree fell out of the forest line in our smallest hayfield. Our forest in this area is filled with a number of trees…
It’s been a busy fall
…but the pond is still not built, super sad face. Today we were notified that the new set of inner panels were completed yesterday and shipping is being set up. It’s too much to expect them to be here next week – maybe the week after that. So no progress on the pond but I…
What we do without a pond
Without a pond to play with, we have been able to pay attention to more farm tasks. The tree clean up of our forested areas is always there and every storm brings down branches and sometimes a tree. Growing flowers, fruits, and vegetables is a constant learning lesson. So how are my koi and what’s…
Maybe the pond will be done by Halloween
Big disappointment with our last pond build. Our local contractor might be well versed in concrete, but he’s not so good at Octaform panels. We have been very unhappy with his efforts and after a joint zoom conference, Octaform sent out a consultant to work with our contractor for a day. The Octaform consultant spent…
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