I finally finished it!! Yay!! The best part is the INSIDE, there’s pockets for everything, but the outside is pretty cute, too…

For some reason, the “Write Post” link has not been working the past two days. I’m sending this via email, which has been an interesting experience in itself. Just bear with me if this looks a little nutty for a while…

So I’ve been really bad about posting, lately, but the pond is coming along really well.

See that big rock on down at the bottom? The picture doesn’t do that justice. It’s going to be living in the pond, for now.

Bigger hole…

Bigger still…

Just about there. The lining is on it’s way, they shipped it Tuesday, and we’ve been saving newspapers to make an underlayment, so we’re ready when the tarp gets here. I’m so excited

Ok, so turns out pond liners are expensive.  like 160 bucks.  And they weigh a ton, so then you have to pay shipping, so it’s like 240 bucks.  And then you need an underliner, to protect your ridiculously expensive pond liner.  So add on another 60 bucks.  It’s just a hole, come on.  So I type in “Cheap Pond Liner” in google, after John shot down my “let’s line it with walmart and publix bags so it’ll be colorful” idea and lo and behold, someone else had already thought of it.  Turns out there’s this thing called a silo cap that farmers use to protect grain and stuff from water.  I need a 20 x 20 piece, and what do you know, they have exactly that size for 16.99.  And the shipping is 7.95.  Woo hoo!  Now honestly, I don’t think its much higher quality than trashbags, but at least the pond won’t be blue and tan.  And I found out that you can use newspapers for the underlayment instead of an expensive one, and it works just as well.  Just a little more of a pain in the butt, but at least it’s a FREE pain in the butt. 

An even bigger hole.  John and I were able to work on it together last night, I think we about have the inner part done, we just need to deepen it another 6 inches or so.  Then we’ll go around and dig out a ledge about a foot deep so we can set plants in the pond still in their containers.  Then we just have to line it and find enough rocks to go around the perimeter…

But if we dig up more rocks like this one….

we’ll only need like 10 to go around the perimeter.  Can you believe we dug that up?  (OK, mostly John.)  That thing weighed close to 75 pounds, I’m sure.  We’re supposed to get rain this weekend (Ha!) so maybe we can have it dug out by then…

Day 2.  So I had this plan to dig one wheelbarrow full, and then go in the house and cool off.  Dig another, go in the house and cool off, etc. That didn’t quite go as planned.  I just couldn’t give it up.  Mind you, it was 95 degrees outside.  I dug three wheelbarrows-full, then nearly passed out so went in the house and cooled off, then dug another four.  Mom came over and helped me towards the end of it, she carried off some of the stuff I dug so I didn’t have to keep emptying the wheelbarrow.  I only turned the wheelbarrow over twice, too.  And, might I add, that I looked cute jumping on and off the shovel like a pogo stick.  I can’t quite get the depth that I need with just leg strength alone.  So, professional, I am not.

See the giant rock over behind the shovels?  It kind of looks like a big pile of dirt.  That’s the biggest one I’ve come across so far.  It was super-fun digging out…

We started building a lily pond last night.  We had been thinking about it for a while, but it took us a bit to decide where to put it (right in the center of our arbor, the lowest spot in the yard) and what shape to make it (a whimsical-ish irregular shape).  We finally broke ground yesterday.  We laid out a garden hose in the shape that we wanted, and then dug around the hose so we had an outline.

After we had the outline set (and had eaten dinner), John and I got to digging.  Two and a half hours later…

I swear our yard looks better than this picture makes it look, it looks kind of crappy in this one.  That thing stretching behind the arbor is actually our grape vine, and then we have some morning glories and lantana planted back there.  It’s pretty, I swear.  And that’s the arbor we got married under at The Summit Club (not in our backyard, although that would have been nice except for all of the Japanese beetles that try to make our home their home…).

I’ll keep you all updated, I twisted my knee a few days ago and haven’t been my usual self, so we may not progress for a little while, but hopefully in a couple of weeks we’ll have a new pond!

John, me and my parents all piled in my parents jeep over the Fourth of July and made the 13 hour trek to Ft. Myers, Florida, to visit my Aunt and Uncle and several cousins.  My first cousins are John’s age, but their kids are between the ages of 5 and 13 and there are 6 of them   We had a great time, here’s a couple of pics from the adventure…

Josh looks like he’s having fun, too

We went to this great pet store where these birds were sitting around out of cages. I don’t know what that expression on John’s face is about…This pig, fondly known as Bacon, roamed onto my Aunt’s property when he was a piglet. Now… not so much.Bacon, the pig… 

Yes, that’s my cousin Morgan riding a pig.  We’re not country, I swear.