When I was at Kaneko's fish house I took this video of some Tosai. I have seen and taken this same type of video many times before but I can't help myself everytime I see baby koi feed.

Before I left for Japan I was finishing a job in North Jersey. I have done a lot of work for the home owners and this job should finish their pond. It was a liner pond that always had a leak so now that we can spray polyurea pond liner we finished the inside of the pond and sprayed liner on the inside. We also installed Koitoilet aerated bottom drains and new returns with wider flanges.

The pond was made from wall pavers and then I attached stucco wire to the pavers and then covered the wire with stucco type mortar mix. After the mortar was attached and it dried it was primed so the polyurea would adhere without any problems.

In between coats we check for pinholes and imperfections. They are marked so we can pay extra special attention on the next coat.

Marudo giving me and my group a little lesson about koi selection.

The koi show was packed on sunday.

There is road construction pretty much everywhere and I saw this sign and thought it was funny.

This is Yozimon's cat. It is really pretty and I can't resist taking it's picture every time I see it. I don't know much about the different breeds of cat so I was shocked when I asked the type and they told me it was an American short haired standard.

It is getting close to the end of my trip so I wanted to make sure I posted a few more pictures of different things I've been seeing.

This is my new friend Aloe. He is the grandson of Hoshino but some people call him Teradomari for the name of the seaport town he lives in.

I helped him catch a few butter flys after he ran into a snag.

After shopping at Hoshino we took a quick trip to the seafood market at Teradomeri. There was plenty of selectoin of all kinds of seafood. I guess it is all noormal to the Japanese but to me some of it seemed pretty exotic.

Squid on a stick seemed to be a favorite.

Shrimp and fish on a stick seemed to be pretty popular also.

Here's looking at you.

Some of the staff at the fish market.

There are dragon flys everywhere.

I went to a local koi show in Yomogihira. All of the koi were bagged in special bags and lined up according to their size and variety.

All of the koi at the show ranged in size from 6" to about 20"

Gin Rin Showa

I sold this Gin rin Showa last year as a Nisai (2yr old). At that time it was 18". The customer wanted to leave the koi in Japan to grow for 1 season in a mud pond. when we harvested it the other day it was almost 23".

Smile!

Tosai to Nisai

Yesterday I went to a mudpond harvest that held a few customers koi. This showa was bought as a Tosai (1 season old) and at that time it was approximately 7" now after a summer in a mud pond it is about 19". Not bad growth rates when you think about it. There were about 15 other koi in a 1/3 acre pond. They were fed daily as well as all they could eat from the natural food supply in the pond. To see other koi like this that are for sale please go to http://www.usakoi.com/

This is a shrine down the street from Marusho Koi farm in Yomagihira. There are shrines like this one everywhere here. They provide a little something interesting to look at besides koi.

Japan 10/07/07 Asagi Mud Pond Harvest

Mud pond harvest of Asagi.

Japan 10/08/07

 

I took this picture at Marusho Tanaka's Koi farm. I should have been taking pictures of koi but I couldn't resist.

This has to be one of the creepiest things I have ever seen. This spider was about the size of a 50 cent piece. The back of the spider was covered with baby spiders.

Another moth

This moth was on the side of the shop and I was able to get a good close up of it.

I saw this Praying Mantis hanging around the koi tanks.

Moth?

I'm not sure what this is but it was on a bottle of Terminate at my shop.