Day 103

Last night when I went to bed, I removed my earrings and found I was only wearing one. These earrings were very special to me, my grandmother had given them to me when I was around 5 years old. I even wore them in my kindergarten picture. 

I had been working all day around the yard fixing up the pond, but I had also hopped the fence looking for mossy rocks in the woods for the garden. I knew if I lost it there, I would never find it again, but if I lost it around the yard, I might be able to find it with my metal detector.

So first thing in the morning, I grabbed the detector, but I couldn't find it. I searched the house and couldn't find it in there either. I tried outside once again and retraced all my steps but still couldn't find it. Just as I was about to give up, I decided to go around the pond one more time and I finally got a signal. There under some brown scraggly dead grass was my earring.

I still can't believe I found it, the odds were so against me.

Day 102

Well my pond is totally destroyed. We had to start taking the waterfall apart to try to find the source of the leak. The more we took it apart, the more I knew it was going to be impossible to put back together. I told Wally that if we were going to start taking things apart, we're gonna go all the way. So the whole thing is coming out. Were going to dig out the garden, we have had pond liners in the barn for a long time and they're finally going to get used. I can't wait for a nice big pond with some good sized fish in it!

In the meantime, my gold fish needed a place to stay. We have had an old pond in the front yard for over 10 years, it's never run, so we just kept it filled for the frogs. So I got in there and cleaned it out. There was at least a foot of crud on the bottom, and it stunk so bad. We removed all the rocks around the edges, and re-did them. I put in a plastic waterfall mold and then tried to camouflage the grey plastic parts with rocks, stones, and moss. I think it turned out pretty good. It's nice to hear the running water out there now.

Now to slowly transplant all the perennials from the other garden, and hopefully we'll have a beautiful garden this summer. :)

What my old pond looks like now

The goldfish's new home

The waterfall

Day 101

 I spotted on old dump site in the woods on an old back road on the way to the grocery store today. When we were heading back home, I had Wally stop so I could walk in and take a look. It's one of the bigger dump sites I have seen around here, there were bottles every where, old appliances, shoes, etc.. I'm guessing the stuff was from around the 40's or 50's. I have to get back there one day soon (possibly tomorrow) with some good boots, gloves and a digging tool. I got honked at by Wally after about 10 minutes so I grabbed these bottles and headed back to the car.

Day 100!

I had noticed lately that my pond wasn't looking as deep as I thought it was, and that after I turned off my waterfall I was losing over an inch of water a day. Wally and I decided to give it a thorough cleaning to see if there was a leak in the liner or something. Well we ended up spending hours pulling up bucket fulls of gravel, rocks that Ryan has thrown in over the years, and nasty goop. I have an awesome pair of pond gloves that go up to my armpits that made the job a lot easier. After adjusting a few rocks on the falls and turning down the water flow, we got it all running again only to find out a few hours later that the water line was still going down. This might mean that I have to disassemble my whole waterfall, which is going to be a huge job that I'm not looking forward to.

We then took another hike in the woods where I came across these gorgeous little flowers, one are of the woods was covered in them.

When it was time to head home Alex had a spaz and didn't want to leave. We kept walking and said "Ok, bye Alex!" Hoping he would come running when he saw we were serious, but he wouldn't budge. So I kept walking and said "Ok Alex, we'll leave you here in the woods and maybe a wolf or bear will want to raise you" Then Ryan stopped and said "Oh no, my poor baby brother is going to be all alone in the woods!" So he runs over to him, gives him a hug and says..."Bye, I'll miss you." LOL!

Day 97

I cleaned out all the muck from the pond and finally got my waterfall back up and running. The water is nice and crystal clear now, much to the chagrin of the fish who have nowhere to really hide until the plants start growing in.

Day 70

I finished it today in just under 12 hours.