Fish eat hot dogs too

On Sunday, a friend from church  invited us over to her house this week to do some fishing. So that's what we decided to do today!

She has a barn in her backyard that houses two PONIES and a huge horse called Gabriel :) This was the first time I had ever been in a real barn and seen actual ponies so I was very excited! The horse kind of scared me but the ponies were adorable and small. 

She also has a huge pond in her backyard and a green meadow next to it for her ponies and horse to run about and graze. 

We used hot dogs as bait to catch fish. This is America. Even fish eat junk food. 

We threw our lines into the water and before we knew it, a fish was tugging at mine! 

After I caught mine, Jonathan pouted and sulked and kept sighing sadly for a long time because he was having some rotten luck and not catching any :-) . Feeling sorry for him, I put my fishing rod down and waited for him to catch one. That was, however, in vain so I eventually picked my rod up again, put a hot dog on the hook and threw the line into the pond. And AGAIN, before I knew it, I felt a big tug and reeled in another Blue Gill. Poor Jonathan was not pleased :-D. He did, however, manage to eventually catch some :). We caught 4 Blue Gill each. 

Unhooking the fish to throw them back into the pond was unpleasant. Jonathan and I are scaredy cats. But, in our defense, touching a fish is really not fun! Scaly, slimy... ugh! And the way they thrash around, gasping for air, gives me the heebie jeebies. So we figured out a way to do it without actually touching them. We reeled them in, laid them flat on the wood and, without touching them, slowly eased the hook out of their mouths. Once the hook was out, the fish would jump into the water itself or we would push it into the water with a flat rod. 

We also managed to catch the beautiful sunset and watch the horse and ponies race about the meadow. I don't think the horse liked me very much because every time I went near the fence to look at it and take a picture it would stare at me suspiciously and stomp its foot on the ground. I guess my good luck ended with the fish. 

Here are more pictures - 

Look at that willow tree ^ ! :-)

All this happened in her backyard :-) . Imagine that! After 23 years in congested Chennai this was beyond unbelievable!