I’m Mary Nielsen, and I live in San Rafael, California with my husband Jim and our 30 year old African Grey parrot, our 6 month old Boston Terrier puppy Archie, and Angelina, The House Rabbit Who Must Be Obeyed. We have two daughters; one is in grad school in Iceland and the other is currently job-searching for a graphic designer position.
We built our first “pond” in 2003, and two rebuilds and a house move later, found a talented pond builder in our area who built our current 5000 gallon pond in 2008. In those early years, I really caught the Koi bug, but due to lack of quarantine, was forced to learn on the fly how to treat sick and injured Koi. Needless to say, I learned the value of a quarantine tank. And water changes. And paying attention to Koi behavior.
After a hose incident while I was out of town wiped out almost all my Koi in the summer of 2015, I had had it with diseased and dead Koi. I completed the CKK program in March 2016, and found the K.O.I. people to be such a congenial group that I wanted to donate some time to helping out, and here I am. I completed the Show Water Quality Specialist certification in 2017.
I’m on the Board of the Northern California chapter of ZNA and do the water quality at our shows.
In my non-Koi life, I enjoy gardening, knitting, fast cars and talking politics with Syd Mitchell.