Waterfall, Pond, Fish, and Frogs

I did manage to get out to the pond a get a couple of decent fish pictures yesterday. Since we had sooo much rain (almost 5 inches) the pond was really full and the fish were hanging out near the top nibbling on lettuce. Starting on the left you can see Armour first. He's the biggest. Then Sashimi and Halo are deeper in the water and Steve is on the right in the water lettuce. Steve has an awesome blue spot on top. Someday I'll get a better picture of him.

This is Armour up close. They have all gotten much bigger in just the past couple of months. I can't believe that it is almost time to start thinking about putting them to bed for the winter.
We now have four frogs and we're thinking that they might be terratorial as they all stay in certain spots in the pond. This one is the waterfall frog and he is the biggest.
We have the screens all out of the windows in anticipation of the painter coming so I took the opportunity to take a couple of aerial views from the bedroom window. We still need lots of plants to fill in the spaces.
Andy and I are starting to work on THE BIG CHALLENGE. My art things are currently all over the house. I have a huge sewing room and have still overtaken the dining room with my stuff. Watch for some before pictures as we try and get my stuff under control so we can host Thanksgiving.

Tug of War with Mother Nature

Well we are having a wee bit of an algae issue in the pond. It turns out that we were missing one key ingredient in the aquaventure~the Bacteria! The pond was clear for 2 weeks and then with only 2 hot sunny days..Bam! Green water. Since then we have been adding bacteria to try and catch up. I think it might finally be working. We can see the 18" level now.

As for wildlife..no frogs and I haven't seen the fish in days. I'm sure the fish are still there, but between their excellent hiding skills and the green water they can't be seen. The cutest little sparrows are loving the waterfall! Even with us sitting right at the water's edge they come right over to have a drink. Of course, I have not had my camera out with me. I'll catch them soon though, I'm sure.

All the systems are finished so now it is up to me to do the plantings. I've put in a few things and we hit the clearance rack at Lowe's yesterday for some groundcover. I planted that all around the front edge this morning. Sorry, I don't remember the name, but I did save the tag.