R.I.P Fred

This afternoon I went outside to clean out the pond. I've been trying to keep it clean any chance I get because we are still getting a lot of leafs in it right now. After getting all the leafs out I noticed Fred was missing. I searched the entire pond several times and could not find him. I looked around the pond thinking he may have leaped out of the water during the night. This happend once before to Ethel. After Ethel jumped out I built up the rock walls around the pond to make sure this did not happen again. But my search still came up without finding Fred. I though to myself, did I scoop him out by mistake? So I searched the pile of leafs that I had scooped out. Still no Fred. I called Sheila at work to tell her that we were Fredless. She said maybe he was hiding. But I assured her that if he was hiding he was doing it well because I went through the pond several times. He is a Big fish and there are not many hiding spots for him. I finally gave up the search and figured that he either was taken by a neighborhood kid or an animal got him in the night. I just saw him yesterday so I know that he has not been MIA for very long. I ended up leaving the "search for Fred" and came in to play some wii and then ride my bike. I then did some laundry and Sheila finally came home from work. She to searched for Fred and came up with nothing. Later she went to babysit for a friend of ours. While she was gone I decided that I needed to resume the Fred search. Before doing this I headed for the bathroom. I looked out the window and noticed something by a tree. At first glance I thought it was a mangled bird. HMMM I thought, looks like a bird got into a fight with a cat and lost. I was not wearing my glasses. So I picked up my glasses and headed out to further investigate. The search for Fred was finally over. The "Mangled Bird" that I had saw in the window tured out to be Fred. A headless Fred in fact. So my original theory of the neighborhood kid stealing Fred was now busted. My best guess is that we may have had a racoon or a cat do some fishing late last night. He must have not been to hungry because he sure didn't take much of Fred. Maybe Fred didn't taste as good as he thought. Or maybe this animal is on a strick 1500 calorie diet like I had been for almost 2 years. Who Knows! The long and the short of it is that we are down to 3 fish now. Our Flintstone crew is now without a leader. For those of you who do not know the names of our fish were all based on the Flintstones. How that came to pass was when Ethel passed away my mother got me 3 new fish and my nephew asked me what the name of the survivor fish was. I told him Fred and he then decided that the new fish would be Barny, Betty and Wilma. That was a different spin on Fred and Ethel who got their names from I Love Lucy.
I told my nephew about the missing Fred earlier today and I have not told him the discovery I made. I think I will keep that to myself with him. He is a very sensative child and I don't think it would be best for me to tell him of my discovery. When I told him he was sad. He thought an animal might have got him. He thinks it is a cat and does not believe that Racoons are in "these parts" as he put it. I told him I spotted a Racoon at the end of the summer. So he decided that Racoons could "Survive" in "These Parts" after all. Funny how kids minds work. So He told me that he will just have to replace Fred for me. He said "I have a hundred dollars, I think" That should be more than enough to replace Fred. Well I thought that Fred was priceless, but as it turns out less than a hundred dollars is more than enough for a Fish called Fred.

Blessings till I post again.