[Sangreaal]

31 January 2008

Horrid stormy day today and FedEx was running late. What had been a tentative arrival time of 9am ended up being over 3 hours late sometime around noon-thirty. Donning my farmer's rubber boots and pink pleather rain jacket with hood, I slogged down a quarter mile of muddy road that FedEx drivers fear to tread to wait near my mailbox on the highway. The wind was whipping in impatient gusts, pelting me with wave after wave of stinging rain.

I'll tell you what, 30 pounds of box, fish and water feels like a ton when you're slipping, sliding and sloshing along, bucking a headwind back to the house with the whirling gusts strong enough to nearly pitch this sillywoman and her fish into the ditch along the starboard side of the road. It all flashed before my eyes the future headlines of the local rag, "Dairyville woman found expired in ditch, clutching box of exotic carp in a death grip..." *LOL*



As you can see, the box was pretty sodden. Even with the layers of thermals, sweats and cammies, my legs, unprotected by my pink pleather rain coat, were soaked to the skin. But at least I had my fish in...



Mystic Koi pack their koi very well--the temp of the shipping water was 55 degrees, just 5 degrees less than the QT at 60 degrees. I pulled the fish from the box and removed the outer bag so I could float them in the QT for about 45 minutes while temps equalized. The rubber band securing the inner bag had come unwound, releasing some water as well as oxygen into the outer bag but the fish seemed lively enough though well pinked up.



It only took about 30 minutes for the temps to stabilize and the fish took the transition well...

(I will continue later this evening)