The Hole: A Pond is Born-Part Six

Part Six of last fall's tale- Part one starts here.

November 6, Morning.  It's a Beautiful Morning...I think I'll go outside for a time...

Today I've decided I'm actually quite brilliant deciding to dig a pond so late in the season. What an extraordinary morning, the light, the leaves, the chilly breeze. Just fantastic.

Yesterday I filled in the long trench for a chunk of the day. I put pea gravel that we had laying around under the pipe so now the whole set up doubles as a french drain. I also starting mucking with the waterfall/veggie pond area. I switched it around completely from my original plan. I've been reminded that veggies like sun, so now the veggie filter is in a sunnier area.

Today I was up early. I blew all the leaves out of the hole, trimmed out remaining roots and trimmed up my foam patching which was quite fun. Now its time for underlayment!! I'm hoping liner today as well. Still haven't figured out how we will get that done. I have a vague plan which includes my big husband, some hefty plant rollers and a kid with the 911 number handy. Wish me luck!

Before work begins, I need to do something about these leaves!

 November 5-Evening

It's a Waterless Pond!!

We missed the ER, but just barely!

It started lovely. I had on tunes, I was in socks spreading out a fuzzy blanket over the hole. Breeze picked up and windchill got down to about 40 but it was warm in the pit! I learned that kiddos in socks are excellent at doing the Princess and the Pea thing. They found a handful of sharpies that I missed that I had to cut out. The geotextile liner was really nice to work with. It cut easily and the fibers in it made it sort of stick to itself and the edge of the collar. Despite the wind, I only needed a few bricks to keep it up.

First dramatic moment came from Bendy Boy(my son). He was screwing around and popped his knee out of its joint. Unfortunately he was at the bottom of the pond when he did it. Neither my husband and I were all that excited about hauling him out and to the ER so we tried to see if we could get it back in. Success! I'm sure it hurt like you know what we got past that crisis in about 15 minutes with minimal tears. Liner time!

The liner is 24x35. It is heavy. The plan with it was to load it onto my plant rollers. They hold 500# each so I figured 370 pounds of liner should be a peace of cake. I worked great! We were easily able to load it. I wheeled it myself to the pond edge then we edged it to the bottom without too much trouble. Once it was on the bottom, we unrolled it from there and then unfolded the sides. The bottom came out with almost no wrinkles from the get go, as a result. The sides? Wrinkles, but that is to be expected from the pond shape. I'm not all that worried about them since rock on a roll is going to cover them. I'll fuss with them a little more tomorrow.

Bottom drain was next. This too was minimal drama, other than putting WAY more marine grade silicone than necessary, it went smoothly. Very scarey making that cut though! I was expecting the slicing to be much harder. As a result I used more force than necessary and I almost cut to far. Didn't though!

Last thing I did today was the skimmer face. Thank goodness I watched the video on this one first. I almost forgot to put the weir door in!. I had about five minutes of panic when I punctured the first hole and then couldn't get the first bolt in. Once that one was in though, they all went smooth. I left some slack liner under it, in case things settle or I want to raise the skimmer at a later date. So it looks a little poofy in the picture.

I was just getting the last bolt in when I heard CRASH! *&&*%^ *&%&^% *&^*&^. My husband cracked his head open working under the deck. It was a bloody affair for a few minutes but stiches were averted. He is watching hockey with a giant ice pack on his head. Me, I'm ready to warm up with a bubble bath. My ears are icy but I am so glad to be at this point. Next stage is filling, but that is not happening on purpose until the netting I ordered comes.   I really reallyt really really really need it to come soon.  There are already a lot of leaves in there just from the past couple of hours the weather is turning fast and I don't want to be fishing billions of leaves out of water once the first rain comes.

"Someone really needs to get at those leaves"