# Not the Colorado River



## Coleve (Oct 31, 2012)

Hi There Fraternity,

As I sat blissfully on a Sunday sunny morning having a coffee, enjoying the pleasures of being retired in the knowledge that from now on every day is a Sunday and life is so good in that it allows me to indulge in fantasies that conjure up images of messing about in my workshop to my heart’s content. But there is always an interruption to these thought processes that interrupts the mind and draws unwilling participants back to reality, with in my case the dulcet tones of my lifelong partner reaching into the recesses of my ears and soul.

I want a garden feature

A gnome I said

Yes

Thank god for that

Yes, a gnome with a fishing rod
Why would you want a fishing rod we don’t have a ........... my worst nightmare descended on me.


Yes, dear we don’t have a pond, but we soon will have. We will go to the garden centre tomorrow. 

I’ll go I offered, save you the journey. No, you won’t, you will come back with a bucket. 

God I’m doomed.

Ponds are hard labour, just digging and digging and more digging, then after you finally finish digging, you look behind you at the Mount Everest you have created, and as you stand there trying to comprehend how all that earth managed to come from that small hole and you start all over again, 

And while you are waiting on the coronary to kick in your good wife is leisurely walking around the grave you have just dug to see the best spot for the frigging fisherman

Why have you stopped she asked? I am 67 years of age. I have pins and needles in one arm, a tightening of the chest and I can’t lift my arms above my waist. I’m just standing still until my body figures out whether to continue or take the legs from me. 

That’s all very well dear, but you’re not getting any younger and that hole isn’t going to dig itself. Yes dear. 

Kill me now. 

Right lads as you can see from the enclosed photos this was not my first attempt at trying to induce a coronary, this is my wife’s third attempt. 

The first was a Koi pond, which went quite well for a time, but we couldn’t keep up with the appetites of the herons in the area, so we filled it in and decided on water rafting instead. Unfortunately, my physics was not up to the challenge and you can see the remains of my pump catchment sump, which emptied before the water flowed back, disaster. 

So, our little Oasis became a dry and dusty river bed for about a year, until my good wife decided to invite her friends over for a spot of fishing.
Bought a 150 litre Oase fibre glass Pond, which I hoped would suffice and completely stripped the whole pond area. I painted the waterways with a fibreglass fibre impregnated paint and finished it off with an Oase pebble matt for effect.

Around the top edge of the pond I purchased concrete garden edging which came in two-foot lengths and cut and bevelled them into approx. six-inch pieces and cemented them into place.

I then reinstated all the slate pieces, gluing all the sloping ones to stop them sliding into the rapids, replanted and added some pond plants.

The pond itself is not for fish only aquatic life, so no filters, just oxygenating plants

Last thing I did was re relocate my bird bath, it was originally on a pedestal that required filling up daily, and my visiting birds had no potty training, so quickly got rather mucky. I reinstalled it with a frog I caught in the garden and the birds seem to like it.

Only dilemma was the bridge. Originally built it for the previous heron feeding pond and we, I mean my wife has not decided whether it has to go.

Added one photo from a previous build and post. Decided to create an outside routing and sanding area under the car porch and that’s the first time used, works a treat and the difference in the cleanliness of the workshop is remarkable. 

Well lads, that’s it, survived another attempt on my life. You never know what’s coming around the next corner. Speak of the devil, hello dear.

Yours
Colin 
Scotland


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## honesttjohn (Feb 17, 2015)

You got more energy than I got!!


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## Bob Adams (Jul 5, 2014)

Very nice! Grab a bottle of baby aspirin and sit back while you wait for the next project.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

I bet you're wishing you'd gone to the garden center alone, and come back with a bucket... 
That was a _major_ project, Colin!
https://www.thepondoutlet.com/page_10503_233/statuary-fountain-pumps-by-aquascape-genera-p10503

...just sayin'.


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

I am very fond of ponds, but open water in the desert evaporates rapidly, and comes very dear (most expensive water in the state). So I have a 185 ft long dry stream bed in the way back. Every once in awhile a water line breaks and fills the stream, and voila' a $300 water bill. So I manually water back there and walk round to spot leaks, burst drip hoses, plugged or uncapped water drippers, rabbit bites in hoses, split connectors, blown out connectors, etc. I do have a couple of hoses to add a little more water to green up the trees that shade the bench on the island at the end of the stream. I'm living at the edge of the Mojave Desert, in the town pioneered by Roy Rogers himself, the wild west-sort of, and wide open spaces.


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## RainMan 2.0 (May 6, 2014)

I looked at the pics first and thought those rocks around the perimeter would be kinda hard on the knees and arse getting in and out of the hot tub lol .
Then I read


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## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

Colin, you're doing it all wrong.


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## gmercer_48083 (Jul 18, 2012)

I don't see the gnome. Maybe you could sneak one in.


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## Rogerdodge (Apr 24, 2014)

Gnomus Gnomus Plasticus - quite rare. Much sought after , of course, but really quite rare.


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## JFPNCM (Dec 13, 2009)

An excellent project with a great lead in. Reminds me of how my pond got built, except it was my Brother-in-law's idea after an afternoon of sipping a few cold adult beverages.


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## CAD-Man (Apr 28, 2013)

I have 3 ponds, one is about 20 x 20 4 feet deep , one 60 x 30 4 feet deep and one about 12 x 12 2 feet deep. A natural spring feeds the 12 x 12 it flows in to the 60 x 30 This pond fills up and goes through a culvert that goes under a fake covered bridge (Long carport that has 6 tons of hay and a 16 foot flat trailer). This fills the 3rd pond which flows over a wood dam and the goes under the driveway and out to the river. Everyone says how pretty but they don't have to take of them. 2 of the ponds are surrounded with willow bushes and the 12 x 12 is located in the center of the horse corral, it's fenced off so the hoses don't fall into it. If you click on or copy this link from Google earth you can see the 2 ponds with the covered bridge, the other pond is covered by trees. This link will only work in the Chrome browser.

https://earth.google.com/web/@43.54...A98hqW8AqEjEwIFdhcm0gU3ByaW5ncyBSZBgCIAEoAigC

CAD-Man


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## TenGees (Sep 12, 2012)

Nice place, Bruce. This worked for me, without Chrome: https://www.google.com/maps/place/4...!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d43.545946!4d-109.6685161


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## Gaffboat (Mar 11, 2012)

Your stories alway make me laugh out loud, Colin. Keep them coming.


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## Bushwhacker (Jun 16, 2009)

I built about the same thing in my back yard right after I moved here. I hand dug out a kidney shaped pond, 12 feet long. I built a deck at one end of it and allowed the end of the pond to extend up under the deck for a few feet so my fish would have shade here in the Texas summer sun. I lined it and trimmed it out with flat rocks. Installed real live water plants, aerators and a water spout. Even built a curved Japanese style bridge across it. I then purchased several Koa fish. Spent lots of time training them to come to the edge of the pond when I approached so I could hand feed them. They grew to about 18 inches long.
Then one year a hurricane came through and flooded the whole neighborhood. I had 18 inches of water in the back yard. My house is raised so we did not get wet inside. 
Took three days for the water to go down far enough so I could check on my poor fish.
They all ran away from home. People from the neighborhood that knew I had fish came by to report that folks were out in the ditches catching my fish.
Only one little girl came by with one of them in a bucket and ask to return it to me. She had it for over two weeks and was in love with it so I told her to keep it.
I filled the pond back in with compost and yard clippings until it is now a part of the yard.
Who knew the water would rise like that.
Well seems to me that everyone in the neighborhood knew it but me. They all said, "YUP, I new that that would happen".

a side note.
One day I noticed my old cat sitting at the side of the pond. He was waving his paw over the water. This is what did when I was going to feed the fish. The fish would come to the top and open their mouths to be fed. and the cat would attempt to grab one of them.
I walked up behind him and picked him up and threw him into the middle of the pond. I swear he only bounced twice all the way across. I don't think he even got his feet wet all over. But he never messed with the fish anymore.

Anyway, you did a really nice job on your pond. 
Watch out for rising waters and your cat. 

David
I


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## Bushwhacker (Jun 16, 2009)

Beautiful place Bruce.

David


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## MT Stringer (Aug 15, 2012)

Somehow I missed when this was posted. Nice project. I am glad to see you survived the ordeal.


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