your moment of "huh?"

[jazzfish]

Seen on a white panel van this morning:

POND ROOFING CO.

. . . what, your koi might get sunburnt? Or rained on?

Comments

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

It's a prop vehicle. Or you are under surveillance. Or maybe the koi are.

Actually, I'd assume it's to keep egrets out of the ponds, as they'll eat your pond up quite happily, but I can't be sure because I'm too lazy to google.

[rislyn.livejournal.com]

Seconded. My ex-in-laws used to have a koi pond that they had to keep netting over, because a heron had decided that this was *his* pond. They lost 5-8 rather large koi (like, 8 inches and up) before they put up the netting. The heron kept coming back for at least 3 years. He'd sit on the top of the roof overlooking the pond and stalk. You couldn't actually scare him away.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

Heron, yes, not egret. But yeah, they're a big problem with koi ponds. There are a range of products sold at places that sell acquatic plants and pond systems to deter them. My favorite was the motion detector attached to a hose for squirting anything moving at the right height (turn it off if you're having guests over).

They will eat your entire pond. Near me is Lilyponds, MD, which is pretty much a giant koi farm, and there are always herons around, looking for food. The owner of the place says that several times they've had breaches where the herons got in and ate so many koi they couldn't fly afterwards and had to be chased off the property on foot.

[rislyn.livejournal.com]

Wait... is this giant koi farm a visit sort of place? Because if it is, I'm going in the spring.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

http://www.lilypons.com/

Yep, it's a big supplier of ornamental fish and pond supplies. Occasionally they have fish shows.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Fish shows? Do they swim them around in circles, with their handlers and get points for proper training?

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

Nah, they carry them around in buckets. I have a bit of a hard time taking it all that seriously, but my brother (the marine biologist who manages a huge aquarium shop) says that fish breeding has a few advantages over dog breeding- a good koi can live many decades, produce dozens to hundreds of offspring per breeding, and you can pick the best out of those many thousands as the ones you want to keep, with much less ethical debate than you would with dogs or cats or horses.

But I doubt they have an agility course and very few of the contestants passed obedience school (although they spent much of their lives in schools anyway).

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. (I have a hard time taking competitive breeding for aesthetics seriously.)

Perhaps this is a sign that the quality of education in fish schools is inferior.

[jazzfish]

Well, they /are/ breeding for looks and not brains at those schools. . .

[jazzfish]

. . . yow. That is one serious heron.

[nixve.livejournal.com]

Most herons are. I have a great "Serious Heron is Serious" photo of a Lava Heron somewhere but I can't find it right now. bleh. :(

[jazzfish]

*snrk*

Huh. That sounds entirely plausible, but I think in this case it's actually run by Mr Pond.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

Well that's much less entertaining. One would hope, at least, that his roofs aren't prone to leaking.

[scraun23.livejournal.com]

because "Mr. Pond's Estimable Roofing Company" didn't fit on the side of the van in large enough font?

[jazzfish]

Sadly, this is likely to be the more or less correct explanation. Although I'd thought Mr Pond was a detective,not a roofer.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Obviously it's his cousin. One (or both, I suppose) got tired of the family business and decided to branch out.

[scraun23.livejournal.com]

"Mr. Pond's Estimable Roofing Company" was founded in 1907 with the invention of asphalt shingles. They quickly became ubiquitous, but fell on hard times in the Great Depression due to market shrinkage. The company managed to stay afloat by dipping deep into it's stock of capital, and laying off 80% of it's employees. In the 50s, under new direction, they branched out into the exciting and new field of chemicals, spinning off a successful cosmetics company. Sadly, R&D costs became too high to continue, and stagnation set in. The business talent moved to greener pastures in the 70s and 80s, and the succession of mediocre management decisions(including the shortening of the name) led to the eventual shrinkage of the company to a sole proprietorship, now owned by the former floor manager who considers himself retired, but still drives the company van around to impress middle-aged bar floozies with his entrepreneurial stories and "blue collar charm."

Ok, somehow I still don't think I'm playing this game correctly.