About That Time The Pond Fish Mocked Me

It's not entirely surprising that it looks like I drowned about 30 witches in our pond. There is green hair algae EVERYWHERE. I blame the weather man. The mild winter has jump started activity out there and created problems that we've never had before. The hair algae? Totally a new thing. I normally start battling floating algae in late May, but I guess the lack of winter is going to pose some new challenges. Early.

Hair algae is gross, by the way. It literally looks like green hair and it clings to EVERYTHING. It clogs the filters and generally sucks all of the joy out of standing around the pond and staring at the fish. As a result, I've been making it a habit to scoop out as much of the algae as I can the past few days.

When it was 60 and sunny yesterday, I made up my mind to get serious about cleaning out the pond. I grabbed our big net and scooped and scraped and scooped some more. Gunk was finding its way out of the pond at an amazing rate, right up until I tried to clean the corner where the fish have been hanging out lately. I accidentally caught one of them, set him (or her--it's not like I have ever inspected the fish for tiny little penises or anything) free, and then realized that another fish was floating on its side over by our really old pump.

Fish aren't supposed to float on their sides.

Sometimes dead fish sink to the bottom, so I figured I had just sent a recently deceased Koi floating over that way when I was scooping and scooping. I walked around to the other side of the pond and gave the maybe dead thing a nudge.

Nothing.

So I scooped it into the net.

I pulled the fish to the surface and inspected it. It kind of matters if there are any signs of disease on dead fish, so I checked for spots and such and noticed that the fish's eyes were all rolled up into the top of its head.

Definitely dead.

But then it twitched.

Was it still alive? Barely alive? About to die? Just screwing with me? I DIDN'T KNOW. As luck would have it, I married a guy with a Zoology degree. He is in charge of twitching animals. Just as I was about to yell at him to deal with the possibly dead thing, the damn fish started flailing and swam away.

Alrighty then. Not dead.

Fast forward to today. Today I decided to check on that Koi again because that whole playing dead thing is pretty much a sign of trouble.

The damn fish immediately started swimming as fast as it could straight at me. It turned at the very last second, but not until after it had launched itself out of the water and cannonball-splashed me on its way back in. It did the HEY I KNOW YOU AND HEY I'M NOT DEAD NEENER NEENER thing about a dozen times before I ran away from the pond because SERIOUSLY. I WAS BEING MOCKED BY A FISH.

I slowly crept back up on the pond a few minutes later and the mother trucking fish started screwing with me again.

So I left. The husband and I got in our truck and went to run errands.

When we returned, I decided to tempt fate again. I walked up to the pond and didn't see my little friend the white Koi. He (or she!) wasn't with the other fish. . . it wasn't near the pump . . . it wasn't anywhere.

I found it in the filter box. It looked dead again.

Since I had already played THAT game, I pulled the basket out of the filter box out and set the fish free in the water. It thanked me by splashing me a few dozen times.

At that point I had finally come to the conclusion that SOMETHING WAS WRONG. I'm a genius, I know. So I googled and googled and learned that white Koi are often the first to act out when there's trouble in paradise. A few more googles later and I had a possible answer--there wasn't enough oxygen in the pond.

That answer sort of didn't make sense given that the waterfall has been running for a while now. The waterfall is crazy over-sized for the pond, in no small part because I didn't want to have to deal with things like "not enough oxygen for the fishies." But, there were a dozen different fishy behaviors that matched the not-enough-oxygen-to-the-brain hypothesis, so I went with it. I nagged the husband to get the old pump running again.

(To explain: There are two pumps in our pond. One is SUPER BIG and runs the main waterfall. It lives inside a filter box on the outside of the pond. Its main claim to fame is that frogs often break through all of the traps and filters and baskets and get sucked to death on that pump. The other pump is an old one that runs a smaller waterfall. It's submerged in the pond itself. The old pump is so old that it only sometimes works. I hadn't bothered to try getting it to work yet this year.)

The husband grumbled and groaned, but set out to get the only-sometimes-working-pump working again. He reached into the pond to grab it and . . . ZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAP!

He got electrocuted the second he put his hand in the water.

Not to point fingers or anything, but *I* am not the one who plugged in the only-sometimes-working-pump. I don't like trying to get it to work, so I'm not about to give it any power. That task belongs to the same guy who takes care of twitching animals.

Of course Twitchy Animal Man is fine. He has a history of getting shocked, so it was hardly more than an annoyance. But! But! But!

It was then that we realized that all of the fish in the pond have been getting a steady dose of electrocution ever since SOMEONE accidentally plugged in the old pump. The white Koi probably managed to get a SERIOUS zap when I accidentally chased it up against the pump yesterday, thus explaining the eye rolling and generally I'M DEAD behavior.

And the freak out today? Yeah, I'd freak out if the person who electrocuted me tried to get near me again. WHOOPS.

Pro Tip: Fish are a lot more active and happy when you aren't electrocuting them.

Lime Cheesecake Tarts

Saturday morning I woke up with a mission in mind: Something green and sweet needed to appear in my kitchen.

Mission Accomplished. Sort of.

Lime Cheesecake Tarts.

I wanted to have a little St. Patrick's Day fun, but I decided to veer from the predictable mint path and go straight for some light and fluffy lime fun. These little cheesecakes are delicate and subtle. They aren't super sweet, nor are they really sour. They are PERFECTION because they are like eating little lime clouds.

Oh, and they are super easy, too.

You start with a package of cream cheese, 3/4 cup of sugar, the juice from two limes, and the zest from two limes.

And don't try to tell me that you don't know what "zest" is. It's the peel from the lime. Just scrape the green off of a lime with a grater and you'll be all set.

Don't have a grater? You should. They are something like $2 at IKEA. (Make your own laundry soap and you'll have paid for that grater in less than a week.)

Take a mixer to the cream cheese, sugar, lime juice, and lime zest until it's smooth and creamy. It takes about two minutes.

In a separate bowl, it's time to make some whip cream. You'll need 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream and a mixer.

At first the cream will make bubbles, but if you keep beating it...

...it'll get thicker...

...and thicker...

And thicker. See those lines in the cream? That's where it's starting to hold it's shape. Your heavy cream has turned into whip cream when you can make little peaks in it and they don't fall over.

It won't drip from your mixer either.

Once your whip cream is all done, you'll add it little by little to the cream cheese mixture, gently stirring until it's completely blended. You'll be left with an amazing no bake lime cheesecake filling that you can use with any sort of crust.

I took the easy route.

You can find Mini Fillo Shells in the frozen section of your grocery store next to the pie crusts. You could also use a graham cracker crust or a standard pie crust. It's all good.

Especially if you garnish it with a little bit more lime zest.

Lime Cheesecake Tarts

3 packages frozen mini fillo shells (or one pie crust--graham or regular)
1 package cream cheese (I have used reduced fat cream cheese and the recipe turns out just fine)
3/4 cup sugar
Juice from 2 limes
Zest from 2 limes
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1. Take the Fillo Shells out of the package. Ta-dah! You're done preparing the crusts!

2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, sugar, lime juice, and lime zest with a mixer on low speed until smooth (about two minutes).

3. In a separate large bowl, beat the heavy cream with a mixer at high speed until peaks begin to form.

4. Add the cream cheese mixture to the whip cream little by little, gently stirring to combine the two.

5. Spoon the lime cheesecake filling into your pie crust or Fillo Shells.

6. Garnish with a bit of lime zest.

7. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes before eating.

8. Try not to eat all of it at once. (I may have failed at this step. It's possible.)

Not Even The Doctors of Seattle Grace Can Help Her