 | Construction I Building a pond is an undertaking that takes much planning, but, in our case we had the vision of what we wanted when we purchased our current home. But, to start the actual installation of the pond, there were some things that had to be done before we started the actual pond itself. We had a vision of what we wanted to do for the pond and given the scope of the project, we began work on the overall house and pond project shortly after we moved into our home. The first thing we did was put in new windows and for the formal dining room we took out the two windows and added sliders to go on the proposed deck that would wrap around the pond side of the house and to the backyard. We originally planned French doors but the salesman provided information on how long they would last and the problems we would have, so we used sliders instead. The second thing that we had to do, was to determine the property line. With the exception of dog runs in our neighborhood, there are no fences. So, the survey was done, and we discovered that there were some major differences in the legal property lines. Unfortunately, Rob had already cleared out all of the blackberries that were there! The next step was to move the septic tank and find out where the actual drain field lay. The as built plans and the blueprints were conflicting and our observation of where we thought it was - along with several knowledgeable people - all conflicted. But that was finally resolved, and saved us a considerable amount of money since we did not have to move the drain field. For some reason, the septic system was on the dining room side of the house. This was where we wanted the pond to be as it had the largest part of the yard. We moved it to the backside of the house, just inside what was to be the new gate going into the yard. Planning and Layout  |  |  | | This is the view of the front of the house from across the street. | This shows the view from standing at street level of the side yard. This is where the septic tank was as the house was built. | A view of what we called the forest. This area had a large number of alders and native cherries, along with dead limbs from the maples, the alders. There was also a LOT of blackberries that we had to take out. Blackberries just grow everywhere in the northwest! |
 |  |  | | Shown here is a portion of the upper pond which measures 60' x 30'. The circular object on the left side of the picture is the proposed gazebo that will be built summer of 2007. It will be in the Chinese style of gazebo. | Standing in the middle of the upper pond, looking down the stream to the lower pond. The stream spans 20 feet and has several pools in it. | The large circular area is the lower pond. This is 22x25. To the right is the proposed deck that will go in during the summer of 2007. You can see the start of the stream/waterfall. |
Pond Construction  |  |  | | Construction started on May 15, 2006. They delivered the large back hoe on May 14, and this was the site that I came home to. | One of the first things that they did, was to remove the grass from the proposed pond areas. | Once the grass had been stripped away, then the digging started. We were making progress! |
 |  |  | | Woody and Matt ran the machinery as a well polished pair. Woody did the digging and Matt did the hauling! | They hauled a lot dirt from the digging of the ponds, and just dumped it at the end of our property in the gully behind the house. This is Matt on his back from a run! Back behind the red tree (a flowering plum) was where the greeting rock was found. | Standing at the end of the pond, this is a shot of the large back hoe digging at the top of the stream. |
 |  |  | | Some pictures of the large backhoe in the upper pond as it was being dug out. |
 |  |  | | Digging the channel leading to the waterfall. | From the backside of the tractor, this seems a bit precarious to me! | After several days of rain, this is what we saw on a Saturday, wondering how he would get out of the upper pond! He had to push himself up from the pond as it was muddy on the channel! |
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