They look great with your pond Helen.
What a sweet sis to pack that into her suitcase.
I'm sure it must make you think of her and smile every time you look at it.

What a great gift! I looks perfect with your pond. I think that's the first time I have seen the pond. Do you have a pump and filter and all that in it? Yours looks so natural.

I would love one, but worry that it would take a lot of maintenance and I wouldn't be up to it.

I don't have electricity there unless I run an extension cord from the house. I had a pump and spitter frog hooked up which I ran when I was home. I had the frog spitting into a pot that had an old pillow in it for a filter. I put pea gravel so you couldn't see the pillow. It is not a very professional set up. It was sucking up the tadpoles so I haven't had it on in a long while. This spring it was pea green then brown when the dust blew off the pea gravel I put around it. I have settled on the olive greenish look. I like to watch the baby goldfish that have colors. The youngest goldfish are brown. The original goldfish look like jaws. They come to the surface if I feed them regularly. I haven't fed them all summer. After the frost got the tomatoes I started fiddling with the pond again.

Nice! I envy you. I have a pond in an sm bath tub above ground but thinking I may do away with it. Just seems like so much for as small as it is. How deep is your pond? We have a lot of rocks but I may try digging. I thought you had to have a filter so glad to see yours looking so good without one.

You probably should have a filter if you have fish. Figure the life expectancy of goldfish that go home to a fish bowl and then you don't feel so bad taking the chance. At Alexandria's near Carthage, they have lotus in a big rubber tub; they are beautiful. You can have plants without the pump and filter. But Once you start you can't stop. My friend's neighbor threw away a fiberglass form that leaked. I had that for a while; it was UGLY but I like the dragonflies, toads, frogs and goldfish. In that pond everything died one July when it got hot and nasty. This pond is bigger but I think for safety a filter would be good. I can run mine when I feel the necessity. I think the spitter spraying water helps and a pillow is a filter of sorts. Now I want to expand and make another pond; it is very addictive.

My macho hubby offered to rent and backhoe and dig a pond for me but I was pretty sure that the backhoe part would be the only thing he would be interested in helping me with. lol If I had a good spot for one where the dogs wouldn't claim it and where it would be close to an electrical outlet, I would love to have one - and a bench right beside it. : )

Helen - I wonder if your metal bird will attract the real thing. My parents had a blue heron of some sort that was visiting their motor boat parked in their back yard. It came several times and landed on the front of the boat and would just sit there for awhile then fly away.

I got several loads of creek clay supposed to be top soil. There isn't a rock in it but it is not very good soil. The guy that hauls it gets it a half mile from me. That is what I dug to make the pond. It wasn't the greatest for a garden which was my reason for buying it. My pond is not very deep; it might be knee deep at the deepest.
Beau chases buzzards in the air and Annie helps. I'd like to think they are smart dogs but you can't fight the evidence to the contrary. They keep the wildlife chased away.

That sounds like our youngest Sheltie. She jumps up in the air and tries to catch buzzards. I've seen her try to catch helicopters too. Like you said, you can't fight evidence to the contrary. lol

Your pond looks nice. I like it with the birds too. I'd like to have one too but also don't think I'm up to keeping it clean.