........outside the side door/porch dear hubby has not one, but three goldfish ponds. It started several years ago with a cheap yard-sale fiberglass shaped pool that you dig a hole and set it into the ground. So he dug and dug and since the yard is very slanted, got half of it into the ground. Then we hid the rest with huge field rocks he brought in with the tractor's scoop from all over the farm and lots and lots of hauled dirt. Then the black, wide edge of the pool looked ugly, so we dug up various green things from the other parts of the yard and planted liriope, monkey grass, and English ivy and left some pretty rocks showing. He added goldfish from Walmart, and here they are........6 years later! We've learned a LOT about fish ponds since then, let me tell you. For one thing, the fishes only grow according to the space in their pond. So these have only tripled their size (or more!) And now there are 11 in this one. He added some part-koi and some of the goldfish have triple tail fins that have grown long and wave beautifully in the water. Oh! and we had to add "water plants", of course. Some died. Some didn't, and grow out of their pots every summer. And of course now our weather is getting cold; the fishes know when to curtail their eating, and are very sluggish. Their systems go sort of dormant in the winter; they stop eating; and of course hubby had to add an electric heating element so they wouldn't freeze up in the ice. But he also has this year made a new little waterfall and added a new filter thingie for them to get more oxygen and of course moving water doesn't freeze. They DID freeze up the first winter, however........before we knew what we were doing, but it didn't harm them. They just "woke up" in the springtime, like everything else does, and went on about their fish business!
We now have THREE fish ponds at the porch, but that's a story for another day! But it's wonderful to sit in my rocking chair out there and read or hand-sew and listen to the gently bubbling water.