2024 started with a road trip from North Carolina to Southern California. We completed the trip over four days and ±2500 miles. Before flying back to North Carolina, I had the opportunity to visit the Dreamworks campus in Glendale. The campus included a vast water feature consisting of waterfalls, pools and a very large, shallow…
Author: lorivertin
New year, more projects
Day 1 of 2024 – bright, sunny, and a little on the cold side. I’m looking forward to a lot of new projects this year! The koi have been doing well in their unheated pond this winter. The water temperature stays around 52° F, dipping to 49° F on really cold evenings and rising to…
Farm Life = Always Something to Do
Barn maintenance. The pond builder does not do barns. I suppose he could but we decided to hire someone for some much needed maintenance tasks. Not really sure how often a barn needs to painted but at 14 years old, this barn is looking tired. We’re going to have semi-solid stain applied and selected a…
Mid-Autumn on the Farm
Gardening chores are taking up a lot of my time lately. I’m cleaning up the dying vegetables and planning on rearranging the garden beds soon. I have to pay attention to the containers that held the squash plants destroyed by the squash vine borer. The dirt from those pots will need to go to the…
Late Summer on the Farm
Life seems so much easier now that the pond is running and the koi are out of the garage. We still have a gazillion tasks like finishing off the last wall of the equipment house, pergola, wood cladding around the pond, landscaping – basically years of work ahead and nothing is ever totally finished. However,…
Projects
The new pond’s nitrogen cycle is finally measuring perfect after twenty days. Between time, a good UV light, and some bacteria, the pond has cleared up and parameters are great. The only icky job of maintaining this pond is emptying the skimmers each morning. We have at least four frogs every day caught in the…
Not loving the green pond
Pond builder has finished installing the last piece of equipment for the pond – UV lights. Our original light did not function so we had to wait for a new light to arrive. Meanwhile, the pond became quite green under the hot sun. Visibility is less than 8 inches from the surface and we are…
“I’m getting close to retirement” says my favorite pond builder.
Not from his day job, just koi pond building. This past weekend our koi finally moved to their new outdoor pond. It’s been about a two year process getting this pond built. While there are a number of tasks left to do, it’s a relief to have a real pond again. The new pond is…
Japan 2023 – Gardening Lessons
We visited the three great gardens of Japan this June: Kenroku-en (Kanazawa), Kairaku-en (Mito), and Koraku-en (Okayama). My takeaways are: (1) My farm does not have the same climate and we really could use a running stream somewhere in the middle of the farm. (2) My dream garden would require a full time gardening team…
Japan 2023 – Visiting Konishi Koi
A trip to Japan doesn’t seem complete without a specific koi-related activity. When we were planning our cancelled trip in 2020, we were doing a full koi day in the Hiroshima area. Fast forward to 2023 and our trip was slightly shorter and I made no plans to see koi except in castle moats and…
Judging an International Koi Show
If only every show was like Euregio 2023! I had a wonderful time in the Netherlands this past weekend as a member of the judging team. The judging team included US judges Larry Gill, Michelle Gravenish, Ray and Teri Alexander…Dutch judges Ruud Besmes, Richard and Anja Albertsboer…British judges Kieron Burns and Gary Hillier…and Indonesian judge…
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