The Other Side of the Pond

We have this beautiful pond in our backyard...

(only because someone ELSE put forth the effort to make it that way before we moved into this house.)

Last year was a bit of a learning curve for me as I discovered that my years of experience in teaching other people how to care for their swimming pools, did me absolutely NO good in knowing how to take care of a pond.... WAY DIFFERENT ANIMALS!!!!

So I humbled myself (after several months of failure on my own) and listened to the pond expert who told me to just buy some fish and they would take care of the algae for me.
Who knew it could be THAT simple!!!

We bought a few gold fish last year ...

(which was actually summertime before I became compelled to be humble enough to ask for help!!)

...and had some good luck. The fish ate the algae and kept the pond enjoyable not only because it supressed the algae, but they were fun to watch all summer long.
We even bought a black goldfish and convinced Nana it was a piranha... LOL!!!
This went on for weeks before Emma finally gave up our little secret... needless to say Nana was a little mad that we lied to her...hahaha!

This year, the algae is starting to get out of control already and I am not sure how many of the little fish survived the winter because they like to hide in the cracks in the rock wall and since it was still snowing as of last week, they haven't really ventured out much.

I decided that we needed some more fish this year, so I ventured to the pet store.
(This time Nana went with me to make sure I didn't come home with a piranha...hehe)

The lady told me that it was probably still a little too cold in the pond for them to survive, but what does she know... after all... the sun was shining this weekend!

(I'm such a bad fish mommy for not listening to her!)

So I came home with about 10 little gold fish and we put the bag in the shallow end of the pond so that the temp of the water in their bag would slowly change to the temp of the pond. After a few hours, we put them into the pond and of course, they were in shock at being introduced into a new environment. So being the scared little fish that they were, they stuck their faces down in between the river rocks on the bottom of the shallow end of the pond and stayed there.

They were paralyzed by the shock of what happened to them and probably a little afraid.

(ok, so I don't know if fish actually have feelings like fear, but since swim quickly away when you try to catch them and since I have watched Finding Nemo, I am presuming that they experience emotion and that means they COULD have been paralyzed by fear... roll with me on this... there is a point....LOL!)

A few of them moved around a little bit and found new hiding places
and eventually ventured down to the deeper end of the pond.

The next day, we discovered that about 4 of the ones who just hid their faces in the rocks, had gone gills up and are now in fishy heaven.
(see...I told you I'm a bad fish mommy!)

I was out there today watching a few of them swim around and pondering the idea that there were two sets of fish in the pond. Both seemingly oblivious to the other group.

There were the ones that have been there for most of their lives that were comfortable with the environment and understood the best places to hang out to be safe
from the weather and from other dangers and they all stick together.

Then there were the newbies.... they were dumped into this strange place where they didn't know any of the other group or the dangers or how to survive.
They let their fear take over and stayed in one place and didn't swim to keep warm.

I couldn't help but think of how that relates to us in life. Sometimes we find ourselves being yanked out of our comfort zone... whether it be a class at school, a new school, a new job, a new assignment at church or even a new church congregation.... there are lots of times in life where we find ourselves out of our comfort zone and paralyzed by fear
(and maybe somewhat by the frigid water).

Do we bury our faces and ignore the other fish, or do we try to venture to the other side of the pond to see what fish might be down there that we can be friends with and that might be able to help us get to know this new environment better?
And... on the other hand, if we are the fish that have been in the pond for a while, perhaps we need to venture out of the cozy crack in the wall  more often, to see if there might be any new fish in the pond. There are wonderful experiences waiting for us
....just outside of our comfort zone
....at the OTHER side of the pond!