Mission Complete

If you keep up with my blog, you might recall that a LITTLE while back we were going to do some work on our pond.  Justin dug a hole and took down our front stairs, and I asked for bets on when the job would get completed.  Well, if your guess was 7 and a half months, then you're the lucky winner!!

 

The first step to expanding our pond was to dig a hole, remove our front porch stairs, and then wait approximately 7 months.  Give everything time to get overgrown and scare off guests.

 I did the lovely job of cleaning out the pond scum and syphoning the water out of the old pond (put one end or a long hose in the pond and the other way down the hill and suck really hard... luckily I didn't swallow any pond water).

 Justin finished sculpting the new pond's edges.

 We lay old rugs down to help reduce the risk of puncturing the liner.

 Pond liners are expensive, so we've always bought thinner plastic and layered it up.  We spread 4 layers of plastic over our hole.  (I'm not sure that this is the recommended method, as we have dealt with leaky ponds)  At this point the children were filthy so we let them take a bath in the pond since it is the only time it will have 'clean' water.

 Justin built a super cool "floating" rock bridge.  So if you'd like to come visit us at our front door, bring your balance :).

 Next, we found as many large (but movable) rocks in our yard as we could, and Justin moved them with his super Daddy Popeye strength!

 TA DA! Almost done.  We put some river sand on that empty spot on the left to serve as a beach for animals that need a drink or an easier way to get in and out of the pond (the chickens appreciate this when they're thirsty).  Our school of gold fish and two new coy are having a lot of fun in there, and they especially love hiding under the bridge.

 The next step is the worst.  Get a really bad leak in the pond that made us want to cry because we were pretty sure we'd have to start all over again.  BUT we soon discovered that our pump was actually draining the water instead of getting it all back into the pond! So, a little shifting the water flow around and we were back on track.

Finally, Justin built some stairs so we can once again make it up to the front porch.  And THAT, my dears, is our pond journey.  Won't you please come visit and try out our front door?  We have some extra towels in case you fall in.