zen pond?

whoa

yanno, if someone had said i'd put so much time and energy and thought into adapting the concept of a zen pond to this place, i'dve said yeah right. but for a lot of reasons, its starting to feel right. like ... i don't even like the idea of pets, because if someone or something shares your life ... then its not a pet because that's denying individuality. that kind of thing.

but yeah. this pond. it started out as a sneaking what if kind of thing, when i realized the fish were getting too big for the aquarium. they went outside to a big plastic barrel thing, and i seriously started rethinking this. then we took the cattle watering bin and that was about the size ... but ... its too uniform. that's just wrong.

so we start with that as a base. dig below the frost line. wrestle tree roots. get definitely un-zenlike in frustration dealing with shape issues and the whole rocks here in our part of the country are weirdly salmon pink thing. blow a fortune buying a heavy gauge pond liner insert to line the heck out of it. realize that heavy gauge pond liners are really really hard to handle.

finally get the pond liner somewhat in place, even artfully draping it over the shelf that runs the perimeter of the pond. fall hits and dumps a whole load of dead leaves and the fall rains and frosts solidify them. shirt. i guess this means they can't go in. wait. yes the fish can. we clean out and fill the pond. the fish go in. wait ... in a couple months its going to freeze over. so out we go and buy a cattle water heater on the advice of fellow pond fiends.

local pet store guy gets into a long convo with us, telling us he went the whole water heater way and has since removed it ... how? well u know that submersible pond pump? you get a pvc elbow and point the water straight up. so long as the water is moving, it won't freeze over and popsicle the fish.

ummmm okay.

son of a gun. it works.

ok so now its spring and the fish have grown big time over the winter. but in the meantime ... yanno, if we're going to mortar the perimeter and the waterfall, we totally cannot do this unless we're somehow sealing the mortar. because mortar has lime in it. and that's not good for fish. we don't want that leaching out into this water because it was horrendous getting water clear of chemicals in the first place. (the local tap water is totally deadly ... i filter all water) ...

okay so back to searching OMGGGGGG $54.95 per gallon for mortar seal?

and we still will need to order another five tons of fine gravel. why fine gravel? well we also have a cat and dog living with us. fine sand is out even if we didn't have windstorms, because ... well ... cats and sand. yeah. and gravel because ... well ... dogs and something that feels dig-able? yeah.

i still don't like the salmon pink rocks.

here we have a situation where the classic zen garden is impossible using local materials and we've adapted all over heck and gone ....

but the amazing thing is, five minutes pond-side watching the fish, and its all worth it. they're happy and this makes me feel peaceful.

i just don't look at the salmon pink rocks.