2011 Pond Redo

What have I done? This picture reminded me of how good the pond could look. Well this is the year. We are finally going to redo the upper pond. This pond was built 16 years ago. It has no rock shelves and plant shelves that were too narrow and over time tilted down. Only 20 inches deep, it was designed to be more of a water garden. That was all before I got addicted to Koi. So, we're not getting any younger. We decided to raise the edges so I could sit on the short wall and hand feed the koi. This will increase the depth by 2 foot at least. We're trying to think through this so that it is easy to clean and maintain. We don't ever want to have to redo it. Someday, if we find we can't handle crawling down into the filter pit of the other lower koi pond and we have to fill it all in, then at least maybe we can still maintain this smaller pond. And so, the hard labor part begins... I thank God I have Harry. He is going to do all the back breaking work of course. We started last Sunday by moving all the necklace rock out. In a mere 3 hours we had most of it out, had relocated it in other various parts of the yard and were both suffering from lower back strain! After only 3 hours, we were both ready for the couch and we still felt like we had got a lot done. There was no turning back now. The pond was in shambles. Harry had to take a ax to the now large bush that was planted next to the pond, while I began to dig up and move other plants that were also planted next to it. Over the past 16 years there was actually almost 6 inches of dirt that had filled in the area around the pond. The rubber that originally ran under the necklace and was only covered with a few inches of gravel is now buried under 6 inches of rock and dirt. Looks like a mess now. There are no real building plans drawn up or anything. This will be a design and build as we go project. Stay tuned for more pics and pains!