Another Project

We now have another unfinished project! A couple weekends ago we started working on our backyard water feature. Carl wanted a pond and I wanted a waterfall. I don't want to worry about somebody's kid falling in. So we compromised - sort of! We bought a pond kit with the plan of creating a waterfall and filling in the pond part with rocks.

First we had to remove the rocks we have been collecting from our rock pile so we could start to dig. This first part took us 4 hours. It doesn't look like that big of a hole but it is! We moved around a lot of dirt with the wheelbarrow. The boys job was to rake out the dirt in our new flowerless beds. They thought this was torture. I don't think at that point they could see the big picture.

Once the dirt was cleared away we filled the hole with carpet scraps that we picked up from the local carpet store. This is to help protect the liner. After lining the hole with carpet we put in the pond liner. Now this liner is awesome! It was huge. We had enough pond liner to fill the hole and cover the waterfall part. This leaves us with an extra piece of liner (the waterfall piece) which we plan to use for a smaller water feature in the front yard (another project for the future). The next step was to strategically place the rocks around the outside of the pond. This part is fun because we get to use our artistic talents (which are underdeveloped). But still a lot of fun!

We were able to fill the bottom of the pond with rocks and go around the outside. By the time we got to the waterfall part we were ready for a break. Moving rocks around is a little hard on the 'ole back. We plan to bring in some smaller rocks (gravel size) to fill in between the gaps in the rocks. We also want to pick up a couple flagstone rocks for the waterfall. Who knows when this will happen! It is so exciting to get this project going. I just wish it was finished. We hooked up the pump and it works great. The kids were loving it. Once they figured out what we were doing they seemed to be motivated to work a little harder. Above is a picture of H resting after helping rake dirt. Crew's self-appointed job is to make everyone happy! Laughter is contagious! A picture of S with shovel in hand and Carl hard at work. It doesn't look like much in the picture. I will post another picture soon.