#Thegreatpoolpondconversion - 201004
Saturday was filled with intermittent rain so no deck painting.
A year ago(!) we had the two fellas dump the first 10 yards of sand into the pool.
The front loader damaged a bunch of deck tiles. We anticipated it and prepared for it way back when.
We finally chiseled out the broken ones and replaced them.
Our weed whacker went south and that required about an hour of repair.
The blower comes next (same problem).
We started measuring and positioning for the temporary filter base.
We’ve changed the design three or four times before we even started.
And made one more big change even since Saturday.
Construction now is going to be much much simpler and less prone to leaks
Be thankful it’s all too boring to explain.
It was going to be tucked in next to the butterfly bed crib we just built.
So we were going to just build it once.
Now it’s going to be next to the jasmine bed crib we haven’t started.
It’s a better location, which will become obvious eventually - we won’t have to step over the return water chute and there will still be a clear wheelbarrow path.
And it’s going to be a while.
So rather than wait, we decided to build a sort of prototype so it can start filtering now.
That’s also for two reasons
- one is to generally get the filtration started and see what kind of effect it will have
- the second is it takes months for ‘good’ bacteria to build up in the lava rock / filter media, so let’s use the time er, productively.
The filter is two parts
- a tower of four bins
- a wood base and return chute.
The tower of bins gets prepped, plumbed, filled and built just once.
For now it’ll be close to the edge of the pond just to keep things simple and easy.
Later we’d build a new base (different location, different dimensions) with a proper chute, then just move the tower onto it.
Stick around, we’ll try to keep it interesting.
Sunday’s outlook wasn’t rosy so the deck waits.
It didnt rain during the day as promised but it did at night, so we were right to wait.
Instead we got more plants that are attractive to bees and birds and did some planting.
More work on the filter base during which we had an epiphany and a major change to about 1/3 of the design.
Then we did some outstanding weeding.
The fish are doing fine - that is encouraging.
And we were visited by an iguana, likely named Donna.
She walked around to the pool and then climbed up the front of the barn and hung there for a few hours.
Here’s an index of all the postings in #thegreatpoolpondconversion