Finished Pond Pictures

We got the last few boulders in two days ago and the plantings and fish are maturing nicely.  Here are some shots of the area at the peak of the heat wave.  Building this was so much work but not that it is done, work to maintain is nothing more than emptying the leaf bucket, topping off the water and once a week hosing down the skimmer pad.  The fish are tame, and come up to be fed.  Red Head Fred continues his trickery, now his head is mostly white with a few orange speckles.  The amount of enjoyment we are getting from the area is immense.  Even with the heat, we are hanging out here multiple times a day.  All an all, this project was well worth all the bandaids, and sweat and dollars.

Waterfall Progress

I spent 12 hours on Friday another 16 on Saturday and Sunday putting about 12 stones on the waterfall.  I'm excited though because I tried out out on Sunday and it works, with only a few tiny leaks!  So why does a short little waterfall take so long to build.  Ah, for many reasons you would never anticipate.

1.  Deluge of rain each day means work interruption, timing of silicone and foam and concrete to work with pending storms.
2.  Deluge of rain each day makes working with massive boulders on tiny wheels on slippery clay...challenging.
3.  Taffy and Daffy the duck visit twice a day.  I feel bad if I scare them so I work slower so as not to startle them.
4.  I spend a lot of time studying stuff.
5.  The rocks are too big.  It took me two hours to get this one off the driveway and into the vicinity of the waterfall.  Then another sweaty hour to get it in place.  The picture doesn't do a good job showing how heavy this is.  I cannot lift even one end of it solo.  Thus the 2x4 in the background.  I learned I can lift a whole lot of rock with a piece of strong wood! 

6.  Limited rock selection.   I only want to move each of these once, which means a lot of time plotting out how it will all fit together.  Since I only have two pallets, I have to plan a few moves ahead.  As we know, I am a bit slow in the whole planning arena.

The goal was to get water flowing down this, this weekend.  We have two new urgencies to inspire faster working.  A BBQ in early June and a new addition to the pond.  We have koi.  Our first of the favorite Harry Potter characters has been added to the water.  Red Head Fred got added to the pond about an hour before a massive thunderstorm.  He promptly disappeared for days.  Since he is a little guy (3") I was a bit worried he became a duck mcnugget but we spotted him on Saturday!  Since Red Head Fred ain't dead, I need to get this filter going!

So here is where I am not.  The area is a HUGE mess, the falls are still sort of sticking out in the middle of nowhere.  The final plan has plantings around them.  I already got a few things in, the amazing Stich in Time hosta has a place of honor at the front lower left.  A division of my Paul's Glory is at the top and a tassle fern is near the bottom with some scotch moss you can't see yet.  Once the rain slows down I will be out daily.  Must get pond done!

Rock On A Roll

I did a lot of research related to finishing my pond's edge.  There are many options, grass, time, small stone, a ring of boulders, poured edge, ring of flagstone etc etc.
My plan is still evolving in my head as I stare at this space a bit each day.  What I've know for sometime is that I do not want the common pearl necklace of flagstone around the edge (too formal).  I also wanted some flatter areas for easy access.  I also wanted low maintenance and didn't want to worry about thousands of tiny pebbles falling into the pond.  That is why I was so excited to find Rock on a Roll.   It is what it sounds like.  Rock.  On a roll.  It is completely flexible.  It shapes itself to conform to whatever it is laying over the top of.  It is water friendly, easy to work with and very realistically colored.

I am using it around the entire perimeter of my pond to cover and protect the liner.   It also does a fabulous job covering the wrinkles.  Wrinkles under rock on a roll just make the rock work look even more realistic.  Done right it ends up looking like a way more expensive poured shell.  Installation took a bit of time because I wanted a lip to the pond edge to help contain the mulch;/grass/moss that are coming.  I did this by gluing flexible plastic electrical gluing to the collar, then draping the liner over it, then the rock on a roll over that.  Landscaping fabric and mulch finished off the area in front of the seatwall.  All it needs now is some plants.  I started with a bit of phlox (I like its mossy look).  Added a bit of hardy lavender to the one end.  Coming soon are a few Canna, some wintergreen and a few other herbs to keep the edible theme going!  Yay Progress! 

I'm Never Going to Finish this Pond!

Sunday was another gorgeous day.  Eighty four degrees which is around 35 degrees above normal!  The goal was to complete the piping to the veggie filter, from the waterfall box and for the overflow line.  Before I could do the one from the overflow line, I had to cut a notch out of the concrete collar.  The notch is about 2.5 inches deep and about 14 inches long.  In other words ITS SMALL!

It took me five bleeping hours!  Yes five.  I attacked it with a sawzall, chisels and a circulating saw. Five hours later the little channel for the overflow pipe is done. Was I kicking myself for forgetting to put this in when the concrete was wet? You bet I was, lol. This was messy painful business. My husband was watching me and told me that my ratio of whacks to the chisel to whacks to my hand was roughly 4:1. Now you know why it took me five hours.

The only other thing complete was the planting of six pansies, the watering of the tomato babies and the ordering of some organic mosquito control tablets.  Oh well, the forecast for the rest of the week is good too.

Watercress and Waterworks

I went to California on Thursday for business and got back about 5am this morning.  I was disappointed about the flight delays because I was hoping to put a full day in on the pond today.   I did pretty good.  I grabbed about three hours sleep and then went at it.  The weather continues to be amazing.  Eighty four degrees today in mid-March!  We should still have snow on the ground, not green grass.  The Magnolia is starting to blossom and the roses are leafing out too.

This rapid advancement into the season is creating a bit of a problem in pond world.  The weather is dirty from the winter.  This isn't a problem with cold water, it will not smell.  I was hoping to have a long enough period of chill this spring that I could get the filtration up and running before the heat came.  I made a bit of progress towards that goal today.  The first of two runs to the filtration areas is completely connected now.  I'm hoping that tomorrow I can finish the drain to the high falls and then I can start playing with building the waterfall itself.

That's after I finish the the overflow....and the shape of the veggie pond filter...and the bottom drain of the veggie pond filter.  Gah, still lots to do but at least the weather is giving me the chance to do it.

Since the pond water is heating up I decided to toss a bit of rooted watercress in there to see what will happen.  I bought a bag at Whole Foods.  Of the entire bag only this tiny little sprout actually developed roots!  I really like the peppery flavor of watercress but its tought to get fresh.  I'm excited I might be able to grow my own.  This little spout is growing in the end of a swimming noodle that I chopped up.
In addition to the food value watercress can help the pond by eating up the nutrients in it.  The more nutrients you have the more algae you have, so the sooner I can get stuff growing the better.

The Hole: A Pond Story Part Two

The skimmer hole is at the far end of the seat wall

Late last summer I decided I needed a pond.  Here is part two of the installation saga.  These stories were originally posted in a private forum.  Part one is  here.

	Chapter Two:  Fantasy's surrounding the Hired Help           From 10/5/2012    Paragraph 1-7 {Insert Poetic, though increasingly dark imagery about daily rain storms for eight days straight} This shovel is long and this hole was deep!     Paragraph 8   Four whole days to get the skimmer level.  Leveling clay in a small gooey wet hole is hard.  Unfortunately it took me roughly eight hours to figure out it this was easier accomplished by other means.  During these eight hours I first played with leveling the clay, then played with bricks and sand in the clay.  All were big fails, but eventually I figured it out.  Since the hole was deeper then needed, I made concrete forms to fill with concrete that I could level at the bottom of the hole.  Making concrete forms at the bottom of a deep hole level is hard.   I needed forms because the concrete shape was a C, to accommodate large pipes.  Success finally achieved on Saturday.  Time to mix the concrete!  You know those giant 80 pounds bags of concrete?  Mixing them up tiring and they sure do not go very far.  I did it in a little dishpan, one blob at a time.  Why a little dishpan?  Because I didn't want to get my shiny new wheel barrow dirty.  (Crazy remember?)  One hour later, my forms were filled and yippee they were level!  Almost done.  Ha    Sunday I spent trying to get the skimmer to the final right height.  Now lest you think I am a moron the reason this was so hard was the skimmer bottom is not flat.   In the center of it is a pipe that comes down six inches.  Also, the directions said the final front height was supposed to be 1/4 inch lower than the back.  I have learned that subtleties in measurement are not my strong point.;  After much pulling of bricks and polymer sand in and out of the hole, I got it right.  Time for pipework! After the pain of getting the skimmer hole just so, I very definitely never want to have to dig it out again.  The could be required if the fitting at the bottom of the skimmer leaks.  One of my concerns was that I would knock it around during the final install.  One of the things I did to help protect it was this.  I found a thick rubber end cap and cut a hole in it that was the exact diameter of the PVC.  I sleeved it over the PVC and glued it in place then surrounded it with copious amounts of marine grade silicone sealer.  In theory this is a second layer of leak protection.  It definitely won't hurt!      PVC pipes are stuck together with glue.  First you use a toxic purple primer that makes permanent a stain.  Then with lightening speed you apply the glue, stick the pipe together  and do your darnest to get to in perfect position before the glue sets up.  You have about three seconds.  This took forever not because of complications but because I was so scared to do it wrong and then have to take a saw into things to correct mistakes. I sat and stared at one step for a hour before getting up the nerve to do it.  I think it went OK.   I plan on doing a test with water today to check it.  Just in case I plastered liberal amounts of silicone around the joint as well. My work on the Hole has been further hampered by our desperate need to replace the rotted out remains of the old balcony.  We used Trex composite for the boards of this and a different manufacturer's rail system because we hated the plastic look of the Trex rails.  It was more work getting it to fit together but it was worth it.  This thing is done!  It cam out pretty nice . All of this work was supposed to be proceeding parallel to the collar getting poured and the hole getting dug.  I've decided to pay for both of those to happen after seeing how long it took me to mix a single 80# concrete bag and knowing I need about 100 more to finish the collar.  I won't be fast enough to finish it before it gets hard.  Problem with the help.   It is like pulling teeth to get him to show up.  Once here, the work is great.  The week is perfect for this.  Sunny and seventies and so not going to last.  His email today was that he decided to take apart his dump truck's transmission during the rain and now he has to wait for a part to come in before he can come out.  Maybe Monday he says.  My fantasies surrounding him surround dump trucks whacking sense into him.  Oh did you think it was something else?

Another Wet Weekend

The entire weekend can only be described as gross, weather wise.  Very cold, very wet.  I had really hoped to get the rest of the tomatoes and all of the peppers in this weekend, but they would have been ticked at getting put in that cold goo that is currently my yard.  So I spared them that, though they'll still have to deal with their current cramped quarters another few days.

Plan B was to get the old plum tree down for the fence expansion.  Plan B went out the window with the rain.

Plan C was to get more patio planning done.  That went well.  Our guy we were hoping on came thru and his schedule is looking OK for getting this done soon.  The permit process it turning into a huge headache, but that wasn't unexpected.  I won't be posting any more about THAT in case they read blogs.  Hey they fly their planes over houses to see if you added decks so it isn't that far of a stretch.  :)

We did make a trip out to to a landscape supply place or two.  Good thing we made that trip.  Pavers look different in person than in the catalog.  We changed our minds in what we wanted and this change will likely save us a bit of dough!.  Next stop was to check out decking materials.  I'm interested in the third generation composite stuff that is out there for decks now.  I particularly like the Ipe inspired deck from Fiberon.  Unfortunately I HATE all the deck makers composite posts and railings.  The shiny plastic thing-yuck.  Right now we are leaning towards composite decking and cedar posts with aluminum balusters.

I spent a few hours working on the plumbing research for the pond.  This is WAY more complicated then I originally thought.  We are not going with an Aquascape kit or their typical layout.  I want low maintenance which means skimmer and sieve and UV and bottom drain and about a thousand different valves.  Hubs is going to freak when he see's all this.  I wonder if stealth pond plumbers can be hired.  I got a promotion on Friday.  Seems like that could be a good way to spend the pay raise!