Friday 14th March 2008.
I headed off to work this morning knowing there'd be little time for a breather today, the balance of the 5,000 garden centre order were being collected. There were 4,000 left and I had to catch everyone of them!
I left the filter cleaning until later in the day, I knew I'd not get time to complete the task in the morning as was usual and whatever time I finished sending the koi order on it's way, I would then clean the filters.
The plan was to set up a show vat, catch half of the koi before the customer arrived to pick them up, load them into their transport tank and then catch the rest while they were driving to and from their premises.
Well for a change, the plan worked a dream. Although it brought on a sweat, I had just managed to catch what I considered to be half just as the customers van drove down the track. I filled their tank and loaded it within around 3/4 hour and off they set.
I took a risk and put the kettle on just after the van set off. Having made a cup of tea, I walked to the far end of the tunnels to feed the birds and sit there and drink my tea. While there I noticed that both of the Zebra finch nest boxes had life in them. I spotted two heads in each box, so there are at least 4 babies to swell the family. They are fully feathered and trying to pluck up the courage to have their first fly. It's sweet to watch them come right to the edge of the box, hanging on for all they can, yet really wanting to let go and fly the nest. In a day or two they will have left the nest.
After I had my cup of tea, I set about catching the rest of the tosai. The second half was much harder than the first, this is always the case, the last few take much longer as they are always the strongest brightest of the bunch. I used our little seine net that Tom made up with 5ltr drinking water bottles as floats! This made it easier, although netting a concrete pond with this net on your own is no easy task.
As the van drove down the track for the second time, I just had two left to catch, how good was the timing! Once the second batch were in the vat, I realised the first half was a little small in numbers compared to the second!
I'd planned on taking a snap of the koi in the vat, but it went out of my mind, I loaded them and it never crossed my mind.