Summer is just around the corner and our fish are eating well and the water lilies are starting to bloom. Our water is clearing up nicely and it is good to see the fish even when they are down near the bottom. Unfortunately, our clear water has attracted the attention of a Great Blue Herron who also likes fish. So far our little dog Daisy has let us know when ―big blue‖ shows up and we can chase it off.
We had a good turnout for the field trip to the Zoo in Royal Oak last weekend. Mother Nature cooperated and stopped the rain for the afternoon. Please remem-ber to thank Pam Francis for all the work she did making all the arrangements for us and getting docents lined up to give us all guided tours with lots of great information on the zoo and the animals. It was one of our first ―family friendly‖ events and I can tell you my family enjoyed it. I hope you all did too.
Later in this newsletter you will be reminded about our annual fish auction and fish education day. Even if you aren’t in the market for even one more ―living jewel‖ you will want to come and listen and look to see what you might learn about some of the finer points of fish pattern. We are very fortunate that Bruce Modetz, Ron Kardyn-ski and Ray Alexander are going for a tour of a Koi farm in Iowa to learn about a fish breeding operation. While there they are going to personally hand select the koi for our fish auction. I believe the koi we will auction this year will be the best we have ever had. I want to thank Bill Weir for organizing this event, Fred Mitschke for hosting and of course Ray, Ron and Bruce for obtaining fish for us. We hope to see you all there on June 21st!
If anyone has any extra koi they want to part with, we have a 250,000 gallon mud bottom pond at our cottage where we will be hosting our annual planning retreat on August 23rd & 24th (see article in this newsletter) and over the winter we lost our koi there. We’re not sure why, but we need some replacements to have something to enjoy during the retreat. I’m sure I will be bidding at the fish auction, but if you have more koi than your pond will safely hold and you want to part with some, call me at 810 543-1791.
Again, thanks to Lauren Kaiser for producing our newsletter. How about helping her out and writing an article, sending a recipe, a photo of your fish or pond or even a question for the answer man for the next newsletter.
See you at the fish auction.
Gil Orris
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