Aquaculture

I have a crazy neighbor who talked me into putting goldfish in my horse water trough last year. I thought "OK, fine. What can it hurt?" Well I got 6 multi colored gold fish. Remember how hot and dry last summer was?! Anyway, they died about one at a time over the course of many weeks. I wasn't too impressed. But my count was off by one. I figured one of the horses ate it. Then one day the trough was almost empty and I was cleaning the gook out of the bottom with a sieve. Lo and behold, there was my last gold fish and he wasn't a tiny little goldfish any more. He was almost pan frying size. Well I might be exaggerating a little. But let me tell you he was significantly bigger than when he was dropped in.
He is just black enough that he is pretty hard to see. I am not sure whether this has a bearing on his surviving so well or not.
Fall came and went. My friend told me I should move him. I researched by internet. I have one uncle who keeps goldfish near Indianapolis. His daughter told me "No, we just leave them in the little pond all winter." So I thought "What the heck. Moving him will be traumatic, why not just try leaving him?"
We had a pretty rough winter and unusually cold temps in February. I figured he was a goner. However, as soon as the water was completely thawed and things were getting warm and springy, there he was. He's very big now, probably at least 6 inches.
So next trip out to civilization-remember I am sewing like a fiend now-I am going to get him some buddies. I'll let everyone know if the dark ones do better than the gold ones.

Oh yeah, why keep goldfish in a water trough besides the cute factor? To eat mosquito larvae and other bugs. And it works too. Go figure.