Oct 4 2012

Pond Build Pt 3

Yeah seems to be taking me ages to get to where I want, the actual fill in…

Here are some of the next few pictures. Hopefully the next post will then be with water 🙂

Too much water, so it was a shaky start to the blockwork. But up it goes.

This will house the filter and all the other bits and bobs.

Blocks done. Not a bad job, we’ve other bits and bobs to start now.

Next was to get the bottom drain in, carpet and then sand.

Job done all around, we then left the hose pipe on over night to fill the pond, nice and slow.

Water in, all starting to look good. Soon after some tests we can add fish 🙂

Awesome.

Oct 3 2012

Today

I was trying to post Pt 3 on the pond build, but I got lost in resurrecting some old files. I’ve actually lost some pictures, and I have no idea where they are. 😦 gutted…
So, today is about me.

I am feeling pretty crappy at the moment. I am not too happy with work stuff, which I won’t talk about. But, on a quick note, even though I am doing the utmost that I can, I still don’t think it is good enough. 😦

Anyway, there are other factors too, a week last Sat, I got up to find one of our guinea pigs had died. So then I had to make a decision for the other piggy… he needed a friend, so I decided to find a new home for him.

I am a little gutted, sad, but his new home is good. His new mum has loads of experience in breeding and care, so I have no doubts what so ever that he will be very very well looked after. I just miss their squeeks… their chattering, begging me for some fresh veg.

This has had a pretty bad impact on my eating this week, no lies, why should I. I’ve not felt very well, and although I’ve eaten its not been what I needed too. This will settle I know, I just need to make sure that I am able to move forward.

Trying to sort out the rest of the problems here, have also been a little bit of a nightmare. It just never wants to stop with this rain… yuk… We’re trying to sort out things for the weekend to get on with the pond plumbing, it just doesn’t want to let up.

I have something nice to look forward too, just over two weeks and we’re off on holiday. Don’t think we’ll go anywhere, but the rest will be so nice. I really need it and so does Paul.

Fingers crossed for the weekend, we want it dry and productive, so I can post more pictures. lol….

🙂

Take care all, and speak soon…

Dawn

Oct 2 2012

Pond Build pt 2

This takes me so long because finding all the pictures that I want to include is just so difficult. 🙂
As you can see there was only 2ft of soil, and then the rest was solid clay. I really mean solid too. My husband who was driving the 3tonne dumper truck got stuck down the side of the house. In the end the digger driver had to dig up the side of the house down to the clay so that we could get around that problem.

We took it down to 6ft… Still wasn’t too sure if it was going to be deep enough.

Luke was really good with the digger, he loaded Paul up and off he went…. several times… this is where he got stuck though. It wasn’t good.

Only had one problem, when loading the tractor trailer, we managed to go through our internet and phone wire. Not good. £120 later.

Paul thought he would act the goat, he dug it all by hand, honest… 🙂

Finished. Finally. Doesn’t look like much, but it is big. We took 9 tractor trailer loads full out of this. at £90 a trip, it wasn’t cheap. In the end because the driver had gone through our wire, the whole day’s work came to £1000 which in total honesty wasn’t bad. We’d had prices from several other sources at much more than that. This also included leaving the trailer overnight so we could load it up with all the trees, bushes, hedge and anything else that needed dumping. Needless to say, we also managed to fill that with the conifers etc. A job well done by me and hubby, as no one else was around to help.

And 5am the next day and it is filling with water, all we need to do is wait and just chuck koi in, natural mud pond.

Think I am running out of picture space for this part. Loads more to come. Thanks for looking.

Oct 1 2012

Main Pond Build Pt 1

26/04/2008

This one I think I will post in a couple of sections. Just so I don’t lose you all. I’ll try and explain things as we go along, plenty of pictures with this one.
After planning our pond for a long time, getting in lots of quotes and talking to a nice chap who in the end we choose to help us. We set about plotting in the garden.

With the house being in my family for the best part of 60 years, this was a strange thing to be doing. Taking on the mortgage after my nan had passed away, and sharing with my mum and her husband.

Front of the bungalow. So pretty and un-touched. Wouldn’t be for long though with us lot living there, soon to be a building site 😦 I guess it had to look bad before it got better.

Two very, very big projects, but worth it.

Here is the garden before….

The pampas grass was a nightmare to get out, and so prickly…

Couldn’t find one of the actual pond area to be dug up. Must have an actual photo of that rather than a ‘phone pic’

The diggers arrive. 🙂 time for some madness.

You can just make out behind it as it takes out the first lot of conifers where the pond is going. In the square at the back of the garden.

I really meant madness too. check it out.

The digger really makes light work of everything. I was really impressed.

After a quick 30 mins in the garden, Luke the driver of the digger had ripped out all the trees and moved them, so time to get the pond dug. The real exciting part.

More pictures to follow, hard work tracking them all down, but it is a lovely to re-visit what we went through.

Sep 30 2012

Our very first pond

25.08.2004

Here is the very first pond we had, my husband and his friend Dave settled into its new home one fine day.

On a personal note. I will never, ever forget this day, because I got a message from a new friend who had taken a severe overdose.

I was a moderator on an internet site for Eating Disorders, and I manned it for the most part, day and night.

At that particular time, I was the only person this young woman would talk to, and I was a million miles away from her. After an hour or so, I convinced her to give me her home address, and details, then her doctors phone number. Eventually I also managed to convince them that this wasn’t a fake call. That day I saved a life.

🙂

This was the small pond after first installing.

And almost finished…

We never realized that a plastic molded liner would then float in heavy rainfall, so it was re-designed a couple of months later, and finally ended up looking like this. 🙂

For the fish, we sort of started off with too many, got a couple of small koi and sturgeon. Knowing nothing about fish at all. The sturgeon didn’t make it, so we never got anymore, think it jumped out and a cat got it, because we never found it. 😦
The koi are still happily swimming around now, from 50 gallons to 5000 gallons.

Awesome.

I am loving digging out all these old pictures. So much more to come.

Any comments welcome, I will return them. Where ever you are from.

Thanks for the visit.