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@checkervest ohh this hit a nerve! We used to have a postage stamp-sized garden that my parents had to put a pond in, for obvious reasons. The local cat grapevine works quickly and they held a near 24-hour vigil by the puddleside, hungry eyes on the languorous koi and their tasty ways, but only for about a decade.
@checkervest Clearly this feline attention was a problem for Dad, as one doesn't want one's fish to be fished. So began the Paws Race, it's like an arms race but with paws. To solve the problem of the neighbourhood cats who never once caught a single fish, Dad dutifuly erected a perimeter of vertical netting. They just reached over the netting because apparently, cats arms are twice as long as they actually are, when there are fish to be pawed at.
@checkervest ugh this box is so tiny I should write a blog post. Naturally the netting went higher so the cats simply stuck their, wait, cats don't have arms, excuse the previous toot. They stuck their legs through the netting and continued catching no fish while getting their paws wet. The fish were so worried they did not in any way react. Dad could not abide this escalation.
@checkervest New netting with smaller holes went in. Reaching over is now ruled out, as is poking cheeky feline limbs through. The crafty assailants then realised if they leant on the run across the long sides of the pond, the netting would give enough for them to lie on it and they could then maintain their piscinicidal misdemeanours.
Dad could not abide this, early in the morning with the dew still wet, in his dressing gown with cup of tea in hand, observing the battlefield.
@checkervest There was hammering in the loft workshop. There was cutting and testing and prototyping and a montage of piles of increasingly-workable netting mounts made from tent pegs, spare clamps and curtain rails. A plantation of tea was drunk and many a buttered crumpet to follow. The prototyping complete, finished products came off the assembly line. They clamped to the edge of the paving slabs lining the pond and held the netting high and taught. Surely no shenanigans could penetrate this.
@checkervest The pond looked like it was a temporary site for a tiny gas or liquid storage site, but only for about three years.
The clamps would occasionally loosen, or screw give in, or a tent pole come loose in a storm and once again, the paws race resumed, and the problem of no fish being fished from the pond seemed as if it would never end. Dad could not abide this.
@checkervest The entire assembly came down so that the problem could be reassessed holistically. The pond ceased looking like a construction site and like a quaint little pond instead, with some nice fish in it and some aquatic plants in pots that lined the inside. Pots that now, with age and growth, were all rather wobbly.
A cat, probably seventh-generation by now, convinced that the fish could actually be fished one day, had the gall to approach as we were both standing right there.
@checkervest A paw was gingerly placed on a plant pot and it wobbled in reply. The cat's body braced immediately, then it withdrew and slunk off. The fish weren't worth the horror of getting wet.
Over the next few weeks we saw this repeat with other cats. A testing paw, shaky purchase, a retreat. Then they stopped coming. They had been beaten and so had Dad.
The only way to win is to never play, or be a fish.