Spring Thoughts..

I love Spring! LOVEIT LOVEITLOVEITLOVEITLOVEITLOVEITLOVEIT!!!!

My little heart is overflowing with it! If this feeling could be bottled or made into a drug, i'd be an addict! There are many people i know who really don't notice the seasons....how can they ignore the smell of new growing plants and flowers, and the chorus of birds and toads early in the morning at sunrise? How do they not see the sun, the blue sky, the trees in flower, or the new bright green leaves? And who would want to miss it?

Even on a COLD Spring day (and we get plenty of those!), it's still beautiful and a LOT better than a Winter day! My only complaint is that it doesn't last long enough, and, if we do get a really WARM spell, all the blossoms quickly unfurl, but fade just as fast, making everything that much more fleeting.

Yesterday was one of those warm days, though - the air temperature was well over 80 degrees (F), and i even managed to get into the pond for the first time to do some maintenance! The water wasn't 80 degrees though! No problem - once my legs went numb, it didn't feel too bad at all! LOL



i really have to get some of those shoulder high gloves for working in the pond - no other kind would work, and if i'm messing with water lily roots,it takes me days to wear the purple stains off my hands.

WARNING: Lily roots don't LOOK purple, but they definitely dye your skin! Another warning - they stink! They smell rotten - i have had people send lilies to me in swaps and apologised to me because they couldn't wash them well enough to get the smell off!


i usually get in wearing shorts and deck shoes, which work pretty well to keep me from slipping, (If i have to get in there and it's REAL chilly, i do have hip boots) but still, we have a rule at our house - no getting into the watergarden without supervision - yes, it's only 24" deep; but one slip and hit of your head on any of the rocks in and around it, and you'll be one of those "freak accident" deaths in the local newspaper! How embarrassing would THAT headline be?
"WOMAN DROWNS IN 2 FOOT DEEP WATERGARDEN"

A Wish For You All...

Peep Romance by David April

I hope everyone has a wonderful, peaceful, fulfilling day tomorrow, whether you celebrate Easter Sunday or not!

~nanci~

The Watergarden Bug

(Note: This happened in 1999 or 2000, so these are all old film photos from back then. i'm happy that i'm finally putting these "out there" - i kept misplacing the actual hard copies!)

No, not a water strider or mosquito - i mean the thing you get in your MIND that you HAVE to have a body of water in your yard! i got the bug as hubby and i were at the open house the Realtor was having at what WOULD become our current residence. The Realtor was pointing out what a large yard there was and telling us that there was plenty of room for a swimming pool. i thought to myself,***Pool? Heck, no! i want me a POND! With fish and plants and frogs and a waterfall and a stream and snails and stuff!"***

And so, in the spring following our moving in, i started digging. OK, i didn't go REAL crazy - just bought a 60 gallon (227 Liter) hard plastic preformed thing, but it was enough to start. i have heard that you should always go big at first, to prevent having to replace it with a bigger one later ('cause all us "ponders" always do!), but i disagree. i was glad i started - and made my mistakes - with a smaller pond (NOTE: i AM referring to watergardens - 'pond' is just less to type!). This one had no filtration system (except plants and fish ~ the rock "waterfall" was just for looks, too), and it was fine - even had more fish in the Fall than what i started with, if you know what i mean..;o)
.
After a couple of years, we did want to expand, so we went to a local watergarden shop in our area that gave free classes on how to install ponds, and just about got frightened out of the whole idea! This place really went all out (and of course, wanted the class participants to purchase the supplies from THEM), and if we followed all of their advice it would have cost us a small fortune!

So i started researching the whole pond building thing myself and discovered that, while watergardens CAN be a lot of work and expense, they really don't have to be! More about THAT later...back to pond building...

Here's a photo (below) of our initial sod removal in the shape of the new pond - quite a size difference! The only thing i wish we'd done differently was to keep the front of the pond where it was and not dig another foot closer to the sunroom - it's a little tight there now.

...So here it is a couple of days into the digging (below)- note the chairs in the shade - we had, in our usual bad timing, picked the only week that YEAR that was in the mid 90's (F)...ALL week!

More confusing info you'll find is the "to shelf or not to shelf" debate. There are good reasons for both configurations, but i can tell you that i am glad we have shelves - first of all, i would have no idea how to get INTO the pond without a step of some sort - it gets extremely slippery in there within days. Second, the shelves are very convenient for marginal and bog plants - in fact, i wish we had made them shallower than they are.

And last but most important, we got tired of shoveling and trying to find places to put the soil!!! After building up the waterfall area, the whole margin of the pond, AND two planting hills behind it in the yard, we were fed up with the whole digging thing! We finally looked at each other, said "Screw it!", and called it done!

The stick is for checking the level of the sides, and that large bucket is actually the biological filter we had yet to install.

The rubber liner going in. TIPS- don't let this stuff lay on your grass - it'll be killed in a hurry (no, we didn't do that - we were warned ahead of time!). Also, we didn't put any cushion or underlayment underneath - didn't have many roots or rocks around, and it hasn't been an issue - but i would still recommend it, because now, any time we lose water, i immediately worry that it's a stick or root cutting thru the bottom of the liner! So just for your peace of mind, put underlayment if you can. i know there are liners that have the underlayment already attached - wow, i cringe to think about how heavy THAT would be!

This is me in the pond - i was pretty overweight then, so this is all i'm showing you!

(To this day, when someone asks my spousal unit what he dug the pond with, he says, "With my wife!"). Sigh....

While we were lucky and had lots of pretty fieldstone for the taking from hubby's grandparents' farm, it was rounded and not good to use for the first layer. Here was our Big mistake, though  - my idea was to use cheap concrete patio blocks for the perimeter. Found out later that they were soaking in the water and leaching LIME into it, throwing the PH completely off kilter! We had to invest in a load of shale to replace it all, which was NOT fun! But anyway, that's how we started.

Couldn't wait to put plants in, even before it was finished!

Here's my guy, working on the patio blocks and waterfall. We did not mortar any rocks together, still not sure if that was a good thing or not. They do shift during the winter, but they were much easier to move when we had to get to the back of the filter when we had a leak. So,  there's good points and bad points to not mortaring, too.

Plants going around the outside. Once again, i saved a lot of money because i had so many plants in the gardens. i just divided or transplanted them and only purchased a couple of "special" plants.

From the other side

Before mulch...

...And after mulch!

And here ~ A year later...!

The End  LOL

Me, Continued

For those of you who may have caught the post about my health scare and were wondering, life goes on for me, thankfully! i had my "procedure" yesterday and everything looked just fine (according to the doctor). i had even been putting a few things off, because i was almost certain there was something wrong, and if i had to go thru treatments, i was waiting before making future plans. That's not a great way to be, but, having been sucker punched by unforeseen health issues before, i would rather expect the worst and just be relieved if i'm wrong!  But, it seems our (DH's and mine) boring and uneventful lives will not drastically change, and that's just the way we like it!

 :o) :o) :o) :o) :o) :o) :o) :o) :o) :o) :o)

Off Topic Tangent Day

Well, here i am, "prepping" for my "procedure" (colonoscopy) tomorrow. I ate at 11:00 AM and can't have anything but clear liquids until afterwards (which will be at least late afternoon tomorrow!). i have had minor surgery before, so this isn't completely new to me, but i have never had much experience with medical procedures. Never been admitted to a hospital (never had kids, either, so not even then). And compared to many others my age (52 - don't tell anyone), i'm very healthy (unless i find out differently tomorrow! :p), and i don't take any drugs except vitamins and painkillers (when necessary). So i don't want to get too involved with this stuff.

The worst part will be the "pre-procedure" stuff. As i said, no food till mid tomorrow, then, about 5:00 PM today, i start to drink this liquid that will begin to "clear the pipes", putting it nicely! Of course, my spousal unit will be eating regardless (i will not cook tonight, though - it's fast food for him)! My plans are a little different - I gotta have clear liquids - Tequila's a clear liquid, right?

Just kidding! - it's supposed to be warm and beautiful for the next 3 days - i'll just stay out and work in the garden until dark - DH always has to chase me into the house to eat, anyway - i don't love many things more than food, but gardening just may be one of them! By that time i should be pretty tired, don't you think?

*It's actually kind of freeing to not think about eating at all. I think some people's customs of occasional fasting is an interesting and good thing. We Americans eat so much, even compared to people in other countries (who are financially able to eat whatever they want) - it's almost obscene at times!*

Time for a picture that is totally unrelated to the subject (thank goodness!) ~ this is a wall in my office at work.

 

Well, i'm adding more on "The Day Of".. Not too bad so far, definitely  can't get away from the bathroom for very long, though! The worst part is this solution i have to drink - it really doesn't taste that bad, but after SIX glasses of it, it's pretty disgusting! I'm all for preventative measures, and everyone SHOULD have one of these after they pass 50, but this is a lot to go through! Still in the process of trying to get the rest of it down (and out!) - wish me luck!