Testin’ it: For the pond and me, its creator, it’s an adventure of hope and discovery. Hope it works out. Discovering it might not!
Much of the testing came long before winter. There are moments of testing, like a boulder on your thumb or dreams of waterfalls, while experiencing the salty sweat of your brow falling into your eyes, which bring you to wonder, is all of this worth it?
While those tests were over the real tests were just beginning.
Take a look at the album at this stage of the process.
It’s mostly about the testing of winter but before arriving at frozen water we first needed the liquid water test. There is something you realize while precisely placing (dropping really) every boulder in its place. It come to you in odd questions you ask yourself, like – “Should I be wearing my shoes in here?”
Why this question?
I didn’t want to find myself with a bunch of little puncture holes in my pond liner. That reality wouldn’t hold water, literally. I decided to give the liner a test. It’s really tough stuff. Short of taking a knife to the liner, it seemed unlikely that an accidental puncture was in my future. I was relieved and so I pressed on.
Seriously, it was a concern, so I consulted several pond videos and noted – no one was tip toeing through their pond liner. They were, in fact, often wearing much more heavy duty shoes than I.
So shoes it was.
It seems, test one was a success. I wasn’t concerned with puncture holes in the liner but that just brought on another related concern.
What about that unfortunate seam between the two liners. Did I do a good job? This one had me wondering in a bad sort of way. I had watched the videos but this test had me second guessing my application of the glue, my use of the roller, my overlap of the seem.
In general my ignorance of this process led the way like a blind man headed towards a lake of piranhas. I hoped they didn’t have a taste for the ignorant or the blind. Time would tell.
View the album: testin’ it
I mentioned last time that I spent an entire day splicing two liners together. This was necessary because I couldn’t get a liner big enough for the size of my pond. It’s not an uncommon problem but definitely one to be avoided if possible. It wasn’t possible for me, lest I do the unthinkable – make the pond smaller.
Smaller was not an option!
I had already given up the duck pond with pier and boat dock; to consider a smaller pond?… unthinkable! I might as well just take a mixing bowl out back and put it on a dirt pile and call it good. Seriously, I needed to make the liner conform to my idea of the perfect pond so investing one day to achieve that goal was a mere penance.
But that mere penance had me worried. Had I done it well? Had I left a gap, a hole, a seeping monster, lurking under the water to drain all my liquid and my dreams. This was the test I faced. The only grade acceptable was an A, or a B+.
A “B” would have sufficed; truth be told, anything but an F was just fine. So garden hose in hand I filled the pond. The unexpected murky waters obscured any hope of seeing failure or success. I had a red pond instead.
Red? yes like the red planet, Mars.
It was red because the same road base you see in this picture was also covering the bottom of the pond. I put a layer of small round rocks on the bottom of the pond to protect the bottom, and the liner. Then I saw a glimpse of my future.
I needed to remedy that future right then.
The rocks in fact would protect the bottom but they would also help me introduce my bottom to the pond’s bottom. The future I saw: inevitable layer of algae which would turn each of those rocks into its own little snot ball version of itself.
Remedy? Road base to cover the rocks, making a protective layer for my bottom line.
The reality of pond life is that at some point you’ll be in the middle of pond life. You’re gonna be in the pond at some point. Hopefully on a nice hot day and not in the middle of October but you never no. The road base layer, or something similar, is really not optional.
The red murkiness, an unfortunate but temporary side effect, settled out after a while and thankfully it revealed that the lurking seam was fantastic. I got an A+ on the liner project but it was only after some good studying and preparation to do the seam right. It did take the better part of the day but it was a sound investment.
Two tests down and in the books. The final test was looming. It brought a chill to my bones, not figuratively but literally. Winter was my next big test. The big freeze!
This test came on Dec 18th and lasted until after Christmas. The test was about keeping a hole in the ice, for fish. Fish that didn’t even exist yet. Well they probably existed somewhere, just not in my pond. They were just tadpoles awaiting adoption to a good home.
I first had to pass the home inspection before the PetSmart agents would approve my application for adoption. I hoped my home would be suitable and approved. The stakes were high.
Turns out PetSmart did none of this. They couldn’t care less. I could have brought all my fish home and flushed them down the toilet and they would have sold me more. They even referred to them as feeder fish. Imagine that. Fish you feed to other fish. So maybe the stakes were not as high as I previously indicated. Failure here was clearly an option with very little consequence it seemed.
But still, I wanted to test this part out before trying it for real. I wanted fish but I didn’t want to re-create the toady mess pond all over again and have an endless cycles of fish that died each year. A big part of this was to keep a hole in the ice so they could breath. Not really – its more about keeping a place for bad gases to escape – fish farts and the like. For whatever reason, I really wanted a hole in the ice all winter long. That was my goal. Would I succeed?
You’ll see in the pictures that at one point the ice hole had a dome over it. This was interesting and unexpected but nevertheless proved positive for the outcome. The little pump that could, did. It kept the ice hole liquid. Throughout the winter I ran the little pump that could and it kept doing good all season long. Into spring, into fall and into this very winter, this has been a great little pump.
I know the fish appreciate my efforts even if they never say so!
I was now three for three. All tests passed. A perfect report card it seems. A+ on every test and on all subjects.
The next season would bring on all sorts of new classes and subjects. Fish, plants, habitats, critters, bugs, birds, algae, water clarity, and a few unknowns. I was ready for the next stage but now… waiting. Spring was 4 month away.
That was probably the hardest part of the pond process. Waiting! but that seems to be most of life. Waiting is hard but its also rewarding because it brings with it, anticipation.
Anticipating next time. We’ll pick up with springin’ it. Spring brings with it all sorts of new developments. Every spring does and this first spring will be no different. Join me next time as we look at the evolution of my, “not a toady mess”, pond.
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