History of the Pond
Part II (Spring/Summer '97)
The Phoenix
In the story of the Phoenix, a new entity rises from the ashes of destruction to take the place of the deceased. In a similar vein, the small pond that was destroyed by raccoons and left to die last winter will provide the raw materials for the rebirth of a new pond.
Matt's dad had been taken by the idea of a pond after seeing our pond in its earlier form, before the raccoon attack. We had discussed ideas and plans and decided to build it together, come spring. As the weather warmed up and the plans progressed, Susan and I caught the bug again and decided to start our own reconstruction as well. So it was that we ended up with two major pond projects in progress simultaneously.
A man, a plan, a pond, "Paradise"
This time we were starting from scratch , so we drew up plans to do it right. The pond itself will be slightly larger than the old one and will have straight sides to a depth of just over two feet. We will use .45 mil EPDM rubber for a liner. The patio will be replaced with a cedar deck that overhangs the pond and hides the plumbing, electrical, and lighting. And a new improved filter will be built to fix problems found with the old one.
Demolition Man
This time when we drained the pond, we saved some of the water to put in the aquarium for the fish so we would not have Jonestown, Part II. With the water drained, and most of the sludge removed. Matt began the demolition work. Out came the patio (which we didn't like anyway), waterfall, filter, and liner.
Digging to China
As usual, I grossly underestimated the amount of time required for this project. I figured two weeks should be plenty of time to get everything back to normal so I could go down to help Dad with his without my project sitting in limbo. Wrong! The digging alone took over 15 hours and ate most of a week. I had forgotten that much of our property was built up to level with various fill materials. The fill of choice in the pond area seems to have been asfault and clay. Digging was not an option. I ended up using a pick and a sharpened steal bar to hack my way through. Once loosened, I could use the shovel to remove the "dirt" from the hole. The one good thing about clay is that it allowed me to shape the sides nicely. I could sculpt it and back-fill any areas that were hollowed out by removal of rocks. There is not much chance of these pond walls collapsing. To give the top a bit of a lift above the ground to help prevent runoff from entering the pond, I lined the edge with preasure treated 4x4. This also allowed me to get the top lip level all the way around.
Construction, junction. What's your function?
About this time, Susan said that the area was looking more like a construction zone than a pond. She was right. I was right in the middle of framing the deck. Once the hole was dug and the deck framed, it finally started to take shape. In the past, when rain flooded the pond, it made a mess of the surrounding garden. This time, I cut a notch in the 4x4 edging and installed a pipe to route runoff down toward the creek. A also laid the PVC pipe that would connect the submerged pump to the filter behind the waterfall. This all went through the deck framing so it would be hidden when the deck was finished.
The liner was the next piece of the puzzle. Most places that sell you liner reccommend puting some kind of padding under the liner. A lot of people use old carpet. We could not find any, so I ended up using the old plastic liner to cover the 4x4 edging and the sides, and newspaper to cover the bottom of the pond. Here is what it looked like before the liner went in. After much fighting with what seemed like hundreds of pounds of dead-weight rubber, we finally got the liner roughly in place and began filling. Once it was about half way full, Susan noticed that we had the white writing facing up. Oh, well. Too late now. We will just have to cover it with some well placed rocks later.
Earlier in the week, I had gone to the decorative rock place and picked up a couple of interesting flat rocks with grooves, edges, textures, and shapes that I thought would work nicely in the waterfall. Here is the pond with the skeleton of the waterfall in place and no rocks around the edge. Once we started placing rocks around the edge to hold/hide the liner, we realized that the round river rocks were not working very well and they didn't really go with the waterfall rocks either. We went back to the rock place, and bought several hundered pounds of "Kentucky Blue Stone" slabs. These were much easier to work with, but changed the look of the pond dramatically. They will take some getting used to, but I think they will be OK once we have some plants in and around the pond.
In this picture, we have everthing done except the filter and the top of the deck. Notice the lights that are mounted on the edge of the deck. One spot light is aimed at the falls, and four low wattage floods are aimed around the rest of the pond. These will be under the edge to the deck overhang and should not be visible from the house side of the pond. The lights are all on a dimmer switch that makes it easy to get just the right mood for any occasion. Be sure all your outdoor electrical stuff is on a GFI circuit. It has already saved me several times as extension cords or bare wires have landed in puddles, ponds, hands, etc.
The filter is now in place and is on a wooden stand to raise it up high enough to allow gravity to return the water to the top of the falls. I put cedar fencing on the front of the stand to hide the filter. A piece of bamboo will cover the PVC pipe that feeds the waterfall.
Tabula Rasa
The construction is done, and it is now a blank canvas. We now must begin the magic of adding texture and color to make the canvas come alive as art...
