Pond swap

Before I start with today's entry, I know there are some of you (mother!) who will be wondering what I/we did yesterday, and why oh why I didn't write anything. Well, it just so happens I did write. It rained quite a bit all afternoon so I hunkered down and wrote my book... after I went to my weekly Spanish class and before I taught my English class. Sometimes, when I'm writing my book, I simply focus on that and feel I don't have much to write about here. But there's no need to panic, I assure you I'll be back within a day or two... sorry for the inconvenience (mother! hehehe).

Okay, now to tell you about our day. Well, it feels a lot like we've come full circle. When we first arrived here on our property last year, the ponds were empty. They looked like big craters, full of muck and guck. We didn't want them filled with water because we wanted to see beneath the surface and make sure if there were any repairs that needed to be done, that we could address them right away. Last year, the retaining wall needed to be fortified with cement and cracks filled, and that was all done within the first couple of weeks – before filling the ponds up with water and fish. Today, however, we emptied the main pond so that we could swop the big trout (only 87 left out of the 300 that we started off with this time last year) for the 740 baby trout (well, not so baby anymore, but we still call them 'the babies'). So, we (meaning the men) emptied the pond to catch all the big trout with a net. They transferred the big trout into the small pond near the chicken coop. Then the men cleaned out the big pond (might as well do it now while there's no water... seemed to make sense). Tomorrow, Kevin, Martin and our other friend, Hairo, will fill the big pond with water again and empty the pond where the baby trout currently live. They will catch the babies and transfer them into the big pond. It's a lot of work, but the babies are getting too big for the small pond (they need more elbow room) and it's also getting hard to catch the big fish because the large pond is too big for just 87 fish. You should have seen us trying to catch 17 fish for Roberto on Monday! It took longer than we'd hope. Hopefully, now it will be easier and quicker.

While the men were working their buns off, I was pruning the overly tall hibiscus plants up the driveway. The moon is in the waning cycle so it's safe to prune. Some of these hibiscus are huge! They're not your everyday little, delicate plant. Then I washed the sheets and towels from the guesthouse, topped up the sugar, coffee and tea, in preparation for our guests' arrival on Friday. Tomorrow I'll clean and dust so everything is all buff,  tidy and shiny.