Eric's Ponds 2001 - A new beginning

A New Beginning - 2001

2001 would be a very busy year around the ponds and it started with a couple of upgrades.

In March I put some treated 2x2 'spokes' on the waterwheel. To me, this gave the wheel a much more authentic look.

In April I put handrails on the arched bridge.

March 21, 2001

April 4, 2001

May 11, 2001

A day of destruction! I was not at all happy with my ponds. So I decided to redo the whole thing.

This was a difficult decision. I had no idea that it would take so long to rebuild. But I have never regretted it.

May 13, 2001

There where several things I wanted to achieve by rebuilding the ponds:

I wanted to make the walls straight up and down.

I wanted to reach a depth of 4ft.

I wanted a skimmer.

And most of all, I wanted a bottom circulation drain.

	In the photo to the left, the bottom drain is set in concrete. The digging got really difficult. The ground started getting really hard and rocky. The extra digging added an additional 500 gallons to the bottom pond. The entire bottom is sloped toward the bottom drain.
May 16, 2001		May 16, 2001

May 24, 2001

The liner was 23' x 20' 44mill EPDM.

It was very heavy!

I dreaded the moment that I had to cut the hole in the liner for the bottom drain. All went well!

June 11, 2001

I mortared all the edge rock into place.

This was a slow and labor intensive process.


June 14, 2001	June 20, 2001	July 12, 2001
I decided to build a third pond where the stream used to be. I shaped the pond as a figure-eight so that I could put the arched bridge across the center of it.

The stream is about 10 feet long and connects the middle pond to the bottom pond.

There is a 3 inch drain at the end of the stream. Simply opening the valve, I can hose the stream down and keep the waste from going into the bottom pond.

July 20, 2001

August 7, 2001

	I wanted to build a deck to cover the skimmer and future filtration and pumps.
November 13, 2001	NEXT	November 28, 2001