Boy meets girl

It’s a classic love story. Boy meets girl. They get to know each other. Boy loses girl. Boy finds girl again, they fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after.

It is time for another tale from the ranch. This love story played out here at the ranch, but not in the way you would ever imagine.

Several years ago, we were had a real problem with algae growing and clogging our ponds and ditches. My husband heard that if you put goldfish in the water, they would eat the algae. So we bought about a dozen goldfish and turned them loose. It seemed to help, although they were only twelve fish trying to conquer a huge pond and many ditches on our 142 acres. By fall, we could no longer find them and thought birds probably got them.

Well imagine our surprise when this week my husband was in the upper pasture doing some ditch work and a whole school of the swam by! So boy meets girl and they had babies! Lots of them!

Now I had to know the rest of this love story came about, and I’m sharing what I found with you from caringpets.org. (Because you can learn something new everyday!)

The more rounded goldfish female full of eggs attempts to flee the perusing males and are drawn to the vegetation of the aquatic plants. The vegetation of the aquatic plants is where the females will lay their eggs when they are ready. As a female drops her eggs (500-4000), several males will follow closely behind and attempt to fertilize the eggs. The eggs immediately fall onto the leaves of the aquatic plants where the fertilized eggs begin to develop embryos. The unfertilized eggs turn white and die within a few hours. Goldfish eggs are a good source of nutrients and will be eaten by the inhabitants of the pond, including the parents. Any remaining embryos can hatch in 2 to 7 days.

Goldfish also have a life expectancy that can go up to 15-20 years. Most goldfish survive winter by staying inactive at the bottom of the pond where the water remains a constant cold temperature.

Living in the heart of the Colorado Rockies, we can get temperatures in the winter that can drop to 26 below zero Fahrenheit. The fact that some of these fish survived and thrived brings me hope. Not only is this a classic love story, but it is a tale of perseverance in extremely harsh conditions. If God gave these little goldfish the ability to survive and thrive, how much more will He help us get through whatever we are facing.

We too will persevere and we will thrive. Our territory will increase, we will produce abundance, and glory will be given to God when we share our testimony for years to come. The only warning I issue is to not let anyone “eat your egg” before it is hatched, by speaking negative words over you and crushing your dreams.

So survive, thrive, remain cute and shiny like an adorable little goldfish, and get out here and swim with the rest of us who are also cute, shiny, and adorable in God’s eyes.

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