Excitement in the fish pond.

Laying eggs in the weed

I have been working away for the last few days. However I have been sidetracked today though, my Goldfish in the pond have been spawning all day. They have laid a large amount of eggs amongst the weed and blanket weed around the edges.The eggs are about 1.5 mm in diameter, and hopefully in a week or so a fair proportion of them should hatch out.

Fish eggs.

I will have to try and net them out of the pond though. Gold fish are not adverse to eating little fish. I will try to remove a lot of them into a smaller tank, upstream of the main pond, and leave them there until they get a bit bigger.

None of the fry survived last year, I had three left at the beginning of winter but they have not appeared this year, so I assume they died in the cold weather. Either eaten or from lack of microscopic food. The fish spawned very late last year because of the cold summer (about September) so the fry were very small to overwinter.

The painting has been a little slow..

I am working on two commissions and they are proving a little difficult, mainly because I want to get back to my fish paintings. However the two commissions are needed fairly soon, so needs must.

I am waiting to hear back from the venue for my Maltese show, but I suppose they are busy with other things, but I would like to know if they want some more larger works than I have suggested. I'd like to firm up the date also, so I can book flights etc. for the opening.

In the meantime I'm going back out to enjoy this weekends sunshine, this is proving to be a scorcher, 24-25 degrees C. A big change from 10 or 11 last week.!!

This is a video of the fish charging around, the cock fish chasing the hens to start them spawning. Those at the edge resting are all spawned out.

I'm back to work now. My sunshine break and weeks fishing over. I have now got the garden under control and I can get stuck in to painting. I have been doing work up sketches at the moment for two paintings, tomorrow I have to do other chores though...collecting payments, dropping into the framers, collecting materials and other run-of-the-mill general business operations.

I'm just checking in. I am trying to get a good start on a new commissioned work before I head away. The buyer needs the painting finished for just after mid June. While not exactly a rush job, if you take out the half of May I'm away for, it could be a rush to finish and dry the work. In the meantime I am just getting over a chest infection, and luckily the antibiotics seem to have cleared it up in time for my trip to Spain.
We have decided that we are just going to soak up the sun on a beach this trip, instead of trying to cram more culture in. I'll need to be rested for my fishing the following week anyway. :)

Ok! I'm off to work now.............