Father's Day

There was an old pond ...

Drew and Tricia gave me the pond kit several years ago. Then we got him to dig the hole too. It has been a nice pond. We have put in another liner one year. I've rebuilt the cascade many times. The original concrete patio blocks eroded and we replaced them with stone a few years ago. The raccoons will turn it on end and the feral cats do a number on it too. It took about an hour a week to clean it. I would put a 2X4 across the middle and lay on it to pull the filter up.

The fountain head had to be unscrewed and the top taken off with a screwdriver the filter pads taken out and washed. Then put it together and lay on the 2X4 again and get the hose hooked up to it and position it so the fountain stayed in the pond and then adjust the flow between the fountain and the falls.

If I skipped a week it would plug up and no water ran until it was cleaned.

The basketball of the neighbor will wreck a lot of things. the rocks fall in, the fall's been knocked over several times and the fountain broken and plants crushed.

I mentioned to Sally that a friend at work was having one of her ponds redone in concrete. That was apparently a stimulus to get ours fixed this year. She contacted these folks (http://www.waterlilyponds.com/) and it would only be a week 'til they could do it.


They showed up about a quarter 'til nine and started by digging up the plants, catching the fish and tearing out the old pond.


They dug the hole out considerably larger and deeper. They put in an under liner and an EDPM 45-mil liner.

They worked steadily and put together a good looking pond with a stone covered bottom and double fall, three lights and a bio-filter with a skimmer on the end that is much easier to clean. About five minutes a week.

Leaving me plenty of time to sit in my chair and listen to the sounds of water.

This is our new pond in motion.

Sunday the kids came over for fathers day. I got what I think is one good picture of Grandma and Cora. I was pretty busy playing the rest of the time to take pictures.

All of the fellas were supposed to go on a charter fishing trip on Sunday afternoon. That would be Alex and Drew, Kyle, Geoff, Steve (Kyle's father-in-law), and me.

Captain Tim called Sunday morning and advised that the storm was past but there was another build west of us and it was supposed to be heavy in the afternoon.The strange weather has messed with the fishing and it hasn't been very good. We might not get out or we might not stay out and probably wouldn't catch fish.

I deferred to his experience. I said, "I don't want to go on the SS Minnow."

Tim said they had one of those a couple weeks ago. http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/979886,sink053008.article

So we will rebook the trip and tell that tale another time.