Day 62 - Last chance to tank some "O"

It has been hot, hot, hot for it seems ages. How would things be if we had had this weather for the weeks after Easter!

The water in the goldfish (far too many for the size) pond is starting to turn murky even though using our free PV electricity to let the filter pump run all day. The pond water, like our swimming pool, will be around 30°C and soon there will be an oxygen problem.

Happened to see someone giving away oxygen producing pond plants so shot over to the small hamlet of Eisenburg, part of Memmingen city. Population around 1400. Very nice couple with a big pond full of Koi , goldfish and other types I can't remember were happy for me to take as much as I could possibly fit in the car. They had already given away as much as possible to two further people. So filled a large builders plastic trough and set off homewards.

In the village spotted the rather lovely war memorial set on the hill overlooking Memmingen East roughly towards the airport. Probably more spectacular would have been the once medieval castle in the village which had been largely destroyed in the early 1600sduring the Thirty Year War, rebuilt 1648 and then burnt out on New Years Eve 1926/7 and again rebuilt in a rather slimmed down version.

On the plaques names of soldiers and where they had fallen - mainly France, some Russia. On the outside wall of the memorial an engraved sign asking "wanderers to slow down, think in reverence of the dead who bent over like stalks in a storm".

The engraving on the plinth in the photo ends by saying "Reflect on and Defend Peace". We have a lot to thank the peace that has reigned in Europe since 1945. I suspect the longest such period ever.


Back home, tip the trough in the pond. Initial fright and suspicion but after a while of learning how to cope with the stuff, they seemed to enjoy the new challenges of getting to their floating feed. As it was to turn out, the plants have been a great success and don't need to use the filter pump.

The plants are commonly called Hornkraut here but officially Hornblatt, in English Hornwort or very properly, Ceratophyllum. Excellent for getting rid of excess minerals and for producing oxygen.

 We humans take a last deep grasp, I suspect though I could do with an extra doses of vitamins and minerals. However the end is in sight.