Digging a Hole, Filling it Back Up
Mar. 12th, 2011 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
multipurposegoddessIn this case, filling it up with water. That's right, I'm putting in a pond.
See, when we had out neighbor replace 2/3 of our fence, he left the wood from the old fence in a pile in the backyard. At first he said he wanted to salvage some of it to build planter boxes for another neighbor and then he'd take it away, and then it was the rainy season, and the pile ended up staying there for the better part of a year, evolving a nice little ecosystem. Walter really liked it, and burrowed under it's shade to dig himself a hideyhole. So when we took the pile away, there was Walter's hold which, given the clay that our neighborhood mostly rests on, became a wee vernal pool.
Relatedly, this is over towards the compost pile, in the area of the yard that H wanted to turn into seating area. So, when my parents landscaped their yard and gave me all their old stepping stones that they no longer needed, after I laid out the walkways to the compost bin and where the beehive will go I started cobbling together a sort of patio using the stepping stones as pavers. It came out pretty well for a half-assed job, and as I worked around Walter's hole, it struck me that that would be a nice place for a pond, so I left an empty margin around it and looked into liners.
And, lo and behold, Home Depot had a pond liner whose measurements were just a bit bigger than the hole. So, after my mom and I went to lunch and to see the Muir botany exhibit this week, we swung by Home Depot to check it out. And the pond liner was in fact an actual pond liner and not a cascade meant to go into a larger pond. So I got it. It even fit in my trunk (I considered using a flexible pond liner, but considering how seriously my backyard wants to subside and how the weed prevention plastic someone put down has completely disintegrated and is not preventing anything, I figured rigid pre-formed might hold up better).
This was Wednesday. Thursday I was wiped out from all that activity on Wednesday and yesterday I spent all my energy on grocery shopping (definitely my kryptonite. If I could only figure out what my corresponding superpower is, I'd be in business), but today I got out the shovels and trowels and implements of destruction and moved some mud around.
I think once it settles in and I figure out some sort of aeration and add some plants, it'll be nice. Just full of hosewater and rippling in the breeze, it's not bad. I may throw some goldfish in, but I suspect that would just be feeding the raccoons.
See, when we had out neighbor replace 2/3 of our fence, he left the wood from the old fence in a pile in the backyard. At first he said he wanted to salvage some of it to build planter boxes for another neighbor and then he'd take it away, and then it was the rainy season, and the pile ended up staying there for the better part of a year, evolving a nice little ecosystem. Walter really liked it, and burrowed under it's shade to dig himself a hideyhole. So when we took the pile away, there was Walter's hold which, given the clay that our neighborhood mostly rests on, became a wee vernal pool.
Relatedly, this is over towards the compost pile, in the area of the yard that H wanted to turn into seating area. So, when my parents landscaped their yard and gave me all their old stepping stones that they no longer needed, after I laid out the walkways to the compost bin and where the beehive will go I started cobbling together a sort of patio using the stepping stones as pavers. It came out pretty well for a half-assed job, and as I worked around Walter's hole, it struck me that that would be a nice place for a pond, so I left an empty margin around it and looked into liners.
And, lo and behold, Home Depot had a pond liner whose measurements were just a bit bigger than the hole. So, after my mom and I went to lunch and to see the Muir botany exhibit this week, we swung by Home Depot to check it out. And the pond liner was in fact an actual pond liner and not a cascade meant to go into a larger pond. So I got it. It even fit in my trunk (I considered using a flexible pond liner, but considering how seriously my backyard wants to subside and how the weed prevention plastic someone put down has completely disintegrated and is not preventing anything, I figured rigid pre-formed might hold up better).
This was Wednesday. Thursday I was wiped out from all that activity on Wednesday and yesterday I spent all my energy on grocery shopping (definitely my kryptonite. If I could only figure out what my corresponding superpower is, I'd be in business), but today I got out the shovels and trowels and implements of destruction and moved some mud around.
I think once it settles in and I figure out some sort of aeration and add some plants, it'll be nice. Just full of hosewater and rippling in the breeze, it's not bad. I may throw some goldfish in, but I suspect that would just be feeding the raccoons.
