The neighborhood raccoons have decided to use it as a bathtub. They don’t seem to be successful at fishing in it (probably the fish dive too deep), but they displace twenty gallons of water at night, that I have to refill in the morning. The pond is right next to our bedroom window, so we hear the commotion.

I flash a tactical light at them and tell them to vamoose, and they do, but I don’t like being woken up to have to do that. I’m going to install a security light and camera to see if that will discourage them. At least we’ll be able to better see what’s going on.

[Saturday-morning update]

For the curious, this is what I’m going to install. We already have one that looks at the driveway and mailbox. This one will be right next to it, looking at the side yard, and the wiring is simple, because it just USBs to the other one.

[Sunday-morning update]

OK, so it turns out that the USB thing works for cameras, but not for floodlights, so I still have to run wire. Fortunately, I can pull it out of the same exterior junction box that the other one is using. I’m not going to bother with 12 gauge, though (despite the code requiring it on a twenty-amp circuit), because it really isn’t any kind of hazard with external wiring on stucco, so I’ll just use some of the 14 gauge Romex that I’ve got hundreds of feet of.

I should add that some of the fishing was successful. I’m now missing my two biggest koi. They were probably the easiest ones to catch. Fortunately, there were less than a year old, and I recently bought a couple others that will be growing (currently, they’re smaller than many of the goldfish).