I'm finding a huge lack of pics of ponds in the construction stages on the net. I'm not saying there aren't any, but..........I have spent an hour plus attempting to find an article on how to build a waterfall - I have to SEE how it's done, not attempt to decipher a person's writings and how it applies in reality.

Look, installing a pre-formed pond is the "easy" part. Easy, that is, unless you are digging in the rock-filled ground that I do. Just about every time you stick the shovel in the ground, you hit a rock that has to be dug around and moved out of the ground. I have an entire front yard FILLED with those rocks that were unearthed while digging out holes for my plants.

Anyway, I used spray paint with the bottom-most part of the pre-formed pond on the ground and sprayed that outline. I dug that out and when the shelves of the pond hit ground, I painted around that and dug that out until - walaah - the pond holes are dug. Yes, I used sand on the bottom, the rocks here are sharp and pointed, no sense in taking a risk in getting a punctured liner.



This is the "lower" pond. Whatever the pic looks like, both of these ponds are small. Maybe 4X5 feet at widest points.





This is the upper pond. The bio-filter is, obviously, very tacky looking. I have only begun this project, I have a long way to go. That "filter" will be very nicely hidden once I am done with this project. Again, I basically just started this project, I wanted to get the water in and the filtration system going so it can start building up the bacteria needed to equalize the eco-system.




This will be the location of the waterfall, and for me, the most challenging part of this setup. I have looked at pic after pic after pic of waterfalls and still have no idea how I am going to go about this. Okay, I'm getting an idea, but I will only publish those thoughts after I actually try it and see if it works.



View from the lower pond looking back.
Property on the east side of my house is under-construction, hence the messes. It's slowly getting more and more to what I envisioned it to be long ago as time passes and I continue to work on it. Mother Nature will have a great effect on the property as well as the plants mature, trees grow into - trees - and the "look" is established.

Doing projects on the cheap as I have to do them forces me to stretch them out much longer than, perhaps, a person that could simply pay a contractor to come in and do it all for him/her. But, I enjoy the process and I definitely enjoy seeing something coming to life that I have created with my own hands. I also enjoy brain-storming ways to do things with materials I can acquire very inexpensively (cheap, lol) or even free, such as the rock I acquired from up North and you can see I have around the edges of the pond. I need MUCH more of that rock, frankly - I hope sometime soon to be dispatched back to that area and acquire more of it. If not, I may just have to take a trip up there and fill up the rather large expanse of trunk that my car has with it.

Regardless, it's 6:00 pm Sunday evening, the day is winding down and so is the weekend. There was nothing in the truck routing system as of the point I left on Friday - hoping someone might have thrown something in there by the time I get to work in the morning.

I have nothing more to say, except: Praise the Lord!!

Ahhh, yes, I am one of those weird Christian freaks that openly loves the Lord Jesus Christ and have been for some 20 plus years now. Not that that means anything, but there seems to be an utter lack of open Christianity these days - it's not very popular, you know.

G'day.

ben

How Far Is This Going To Go?

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm starting to get very concerned about this oil that is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico - there's talk now that currents could carry it out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Well, I don't think marine life lives to well in thick oil, meaning if this thing isn't contained soon, it could literally affect the entire planet. How is it that they don't have viable contingency plan if/when something like this happens? How are they going to get all of that oil out of the water? What is with Obama saying it's BP's problem? At the rate it's going, it's going to be the planet's problem and the Federal Government better think again about dumping responsibility onto a company that has limited options when compared to the Feds.

This Obama guy is a real piece of work.

Well, I won't say anymore about it, it's some pretty frustrating stuff to listen to that guy saying much of anything.

I just finished my bio-filter and have it up and running. The pump is only 130 gallons per hour, but that's what these people say it needs, nothing more than that, so, no big deal. It uses very little electricity. I haven't gone to any sites yet to see about whether getting plants right away is a good thing or not.

Long break. Army tenant gone, I decided to take a nap in that room and see what kind of noise filters through the wall from the living room. Nothing great - but you can hear the TV. Hence my rules at night - TV is kept low volume if tenant is here.

I also found a pond club in this area online. Not that I am going to start going to pond meetings, I wanted to see pics. Gawdy. That's all I can say. People using river rocks in their ponds. I am a big-time HATER of gawdy-looking river rocks. They used to be extremely popular in these parts in the 70's, but then the age of exotic looking landscaping rocks came into existence (and a rather large, local industry to facilitate such) and river rocks became a thing of the past.

People who still have them get rid of them. You will see them posted on Craigslist - river rocks, free come and get them. NO THANKS. Well, almost all of these ponds in the pics I was looking at are using giant and medium sized river rocks. Use a little creativity, will ya? I lined my ponds with the rocks I got from up north already. MUCH better looking than those ugly river rocks. I will need at least as many as I brought home to finish the project. I didn't figure I had gotten enough, but the place I had pulled over? I pretty much fished them all out of there.

I'm also using the rock I have dug up out of the ground. Those rocks are good looking, too - just not near as good looking as the rocks I brought from the mountains.

My concern in going to this page was to find out about keeping water cool. As I had suspected, a good waterfall is paramount to cooling water in the summer as the water cascades down the rocks. I may end up building one a bit larger than I first anticipated. They also say to use a lot of water lillies to cover the top of the pond and also to do bi-weekly water changes. Not FULL water changes, 10-20%. No waste of water there, I can pump it directly onto my nearby plants. Shade is also helpful - I might put some posts in the ground and simply use my nursery grade shade screen to keep the direct sunlight off of it.

The point? I have barely just gotten started on this project,really, lots left to do. My ponds will not be good for Koi, but should be okay for goldfish. Not deep enough. I found this out going into this, not a big deal to me. I don't want too many fish anyway. Maybe 2 per pond. I DO want a lot of water plants, of course, me being the plant lover that I am and finding a woman that is selling them $2 each doesn't hurt, either. No, if I end up wanting a Koi pond, I will do that on down the road after I get a little experience with these 2 small ponds. Then I will construct a MUCH larger pond at up to 2,000 gallons.

For now? Very happy with the little ponds, when they are completed, they shouldn't be too time consuming on maintenance and, of course, very lovely to both look at and listen to.

Sunday

Second pond was installed late yesterday.
I did a trial run in filling both of them up and seeing if one will spill into the other without losing water all over the place - intended effect was accomplished. I already started pumping water from one pond to the other. As the project moves forward, it is getting more exhilarating simply because I can see what the outcome of it is going to be and it's going to be totally cool.

Today's doing will be to attempt to put that biofilter together. I still have no idea how I am going to cut out the large hole in the top side of the plastic bucket -maybe try to poke a hole through it and then cut it from there.

The female tenant is gone. She stated she wants to come back after her 60 days with of training exercises are over with. Meanwhile I've had several calls on the room and 2 no-shows plus 3 more people that are in various other parts of the state and are coming to Phoenix in the next couple of days and would like to look at the room.

Whatever. I don't hold rooms for anyone anymore and I tell them that directly on the phone. If the room is rented before they get here, well, there are plenty of other rooms (albeit, there aren't a lot of other rooms being rented on a temporary basis, which is what all of these people were looking for). If they REALLY wanted to hold the room, then back it up by putting a non-refundable deposit down.

Yeah, I didn't think so. Well, hopefully before too long here I will have it rented out for a day - a week - whatever I can get, really.

Sunday. Quiet. No kids bothering me and tenants are either not here or definitely aren't making any noise. Newest tenant may be having financial difficulties. She works, yes, but it has become apparent to me that she needs to learn how to budget. I'm not sure if this person is going to work out or not - when the rent is due we'll see. I'm not interested much in getting burned by non-paying people anymore and I am at the point where I will have very little tolerance for non-payers. I hate to throw people out - it's really not my nature - but something inside of me is being altered enough to simply say pay the rent or please have your things out of here by nightfall, thank you.

Well, I think I'm going to bring that plastic tub in here and start fiddling with it.

C'yall later and have a great day!
ben