For the pond's 1st year (1996), we thought that this was our ONE & ONLY goldfish, a pond comet. We called our goldfish 'Orfie' because it looked like a Golden Orfe when it was only 2" long! We have no idea how it got into the pond. Perhaps it was an egg on a pond plant purchased at a nursery where there were goldfish, or perhaps it was a fry we scooped out of the local Laguna when we collected our mosquito fish. We'll never know! It used to be very shy and I only got this picture (taken in January `97) because its head was hidden under a leaf and it thought it was hidden!

You can click here to see our first picture ever where Orfie's head wasn't hidden. It was taken in February '97 and Orfie has been considerably less shy since then. We fondly call Orfie "The World's Ugliest Goldfish"!

At one point we felt sorry for Orfie and I bought 6 feeder goldfish, choosing only grey ones so that they would go with the 'natural' theme of our pond. Over the next 3 days I found 4 of them dead. I never saw another and we thought they were all dead. Then in March '97 we saw one of them, now 3" long! Surprise! It was a lovely bronze color and was very shy. Since '97 however, it too has lost its shyness. Our 2nd goldfish is named Goldie because it became a lovely golden color. The two goldfish are now inseparable friends! Click here to see a '97 picture of Goldie.

Goldie is now almost as big as Orfie! They really enjoy each others company! In 1998 Orfie completely lost any shyness and grew to about 9"! This picture of the two of them together was taken 7-98. Click here to see Orfie alone in '98, and/or here to see Goldie alone.

2001 update: Our goldfish are no longer with us. We believe they became part of the food chain, a natural happening in a wildlife pond. This occurred shortly after we started hearing Night Herons. But the positive side to the equation is that now we have more frogs and dragonflies than ever in the pond: apparently the goldfish had been feeding on the dragonfly and frog young'uns to a greater extent than we had realized.