That's a great collection of buckets you got going on there,they look really good on the ladder. I think it looks good unpainted,but if you want to paint it,that will look good,too:) I found one of those wooden step ladders and bought the Kilz spray paint that comes in so many different colors,painted it aqua. I only used one coat,it soaked into the wood,and I left it like that. It looked like nice old worn paint :) I'm using mine as a place to set a drink, next to the white wicker chairs,but as soon as I find another one like it,I'm painting it aqua,too,and making a bench/table that will go behind the wicker settee.

HI, They are likely full of eggs and preparing to spawn as soon as something triggers them. Fish will spawn whether conditions are optimal for the eggs or not and the other fish will gobble up the eggs right behind them. Another option is bloat, watch to see if the scales begin to stick out on their sides. Given the time of year I lean towards egg full.

You are fortunate you can have tropical's outdoors. I am happy with my goldies and koi (especially since the larger ones were given to us) and happy to have them breeding. I must also say we somehow got bluegill bream in the long end (we have an upper circle with a fountain and waterfall which feeds into the long end and all is creek-fed from springs on our farm. The long end does drain back into the creek in a trickle about four feet long so it would have been impossible for them to swim up that incline. Either birds dropped them or ??. Anyway, they also seem to have now two or three small ones I assume they spawned. The large area of parrots feather in the long end have several babies of some distraction swimming among their fronds, again, I assume baby goldies although it could be a mixture of bream fry and goldfish. Amazing to me! And there are also tons of teensy, bright white dots which I'm wondering whether those are eggs?!

The boat tail grackles began coming to this area a few years ago (& most of the starlings-thankfully- then began to leave!). I do think they are beautiful & laugh at their 'look at me!' demeaner & take over our 50 ft. red cedar tree for their noisey 'conferences!but I don't like their aggressive behavior towards other birds! The ones here have black beaks. Am told they rob other bird's nests, eat the eggs, kill & eat the baby birds so am wondering when I see them fly with a small object in their beaks if it is the mosquito eating minnows that we keep (they are live bearers) in the small fish pond. I see them stand on the edge of the pond on rocks to drink & bath so guess when they see one of the top swimming (not to 'bright!) minnows they could catch one? Now we are putting netting over the small inground pond to be safe! Guess we can hope for a new variety of bird to come in when (? if) the grackles move on to an other area of the U.S. Odd, how here we seem to have these migrations of different varieties of birds! Few years ago we had ONE pair of mourning doves in our area.... now they are all over! Then the starlings came & took over for awhile but are a lot fewer now since the grackles arrived. We had one pair of curved billed threshers (orange eyes) three years ago & now our yard has dozens & some build nests in our cactus & seem to be not afraid at all ... even chase the resident squirrel! Now the influx of so many toads to our yard & pond ... THAT is another mystery! They are not afraid & seldom move away & don't seem to be of interest to any of our dogs even when the dogs sniff them at the pond... do they have no aroma or maybe it is offensive to the dogs? Now the blue tail lizzards keep the dogs in a perpetual/fruitless chase!! What a blessing of on-going 'fun' in our small city lot in the high desert!