#Thegreatpoolpondconversion - 191006
Today we have to take a few steps back in explanation.
The pond is going to have three levels. Sort of an upside down ziggurat.
The lowest level, in the center we call ‘the channel’. After the liner is laid, the channel will have a combination of river rock for cover/protection and lava rock. Lava rock is rough with nooks and crannies, so algae and stuff will have something to cling on to.
We have a number of flower beds the previous homeowner lined with river rock. And we don’t like em. So re-purposing seemed like a good reason to tackle removing them now. It’s a big, parallel job that’s mostly been taking up saturdays (and likely contributed to my one week off back trouble).
First it needs to be loosened up, then dug up. Wheelbarrowed to a concrete pad we have near the barn. Then when that pile is big enough we sift out the dirt, separate the stones and return the dirt to the bed. That was the last 3 saturdays.
Now we have a pile of rocks that have to be washed. Since the pond won’t have a filter, we have to get some of the dirt, dust and muck off now.
We started doing this now because we realized that we had to replace the sandbags of sand holding down the tarp with sandbags of rock. Remember we had a panic disaster early on when our original roof system didn’t work. We made a bunch of bags real fast without considering what would happen later.
Eventually the tarp gets removed when the liner is installed. If we’re left with 30-40 bags of sand, it would be useless. But if we replace the sand with rock, that rock can go in the channel on top of the liner with the lava rock. Clever, right? Just a little timeline and critical path analysis and here we are. Sure, we’ll have leftover bags, but not 80 cu ft of sand.
So we spent the day scooping rocks into the grate, powerwashing them, then scooping the clean rocks into sandbags using the handy-dandy sandbag maker.
About 42 or so bags of rocks:
Then we drove around swapping out the bags holding the tarp down. And we patched some holes in the tarp.
This is the first weekend we didn’t come in for lunch dripping wet having to change and wring out our clothes.
This is also the second weekend we didn’t work in the pit. Back to that next week.
While we were washing the rocks we came across these:
#thegreatpoolpondconversion is now a going concern generating its own revenue. (And a busted fuse, and a bolt, and…)
Did i tell you about the 8 foot high cactus we are moving?