pond maven
Deede
In my eagerness :lol: to get info, I posted without first introducing myself properly. I say properly since when "cometkeith" urged me to introduce myself I merely responded to his request and DID NOT post to the introduction section. And as if that is not enough I lost my first attempt to post to introductions. Because my life motto tends to be "I can do that, how hard can it be?" I do accomplish lots but sometimes (often?) have to fix the mess I make.
So here goes: We have recently moved to Maryland from New Mexico. When our sons all three ended up here with the grandbabies, we sold the house and moved. 20+ years in the military made the move emotionally easy.
The pic shows our pond in New Mexico, but don't let it fool you, there was nothing verdant and green in our back yard except an awesome pecan tree and apricot tree(hence the shade.) Where the pond is was nothing but barren ground with a couple of stunted disease-ridden dwarf peach trees. Just after we moved into this house, husband Steve had hip replacement and was not able to help with the pond and as usual I did it myself. This was my third pond so I figured "I can do that, how hard can it be?" So I grabbed a shovel and built the whole thing by my self with the exception of the liner. Steve was recovered enough to help with that part. We got lots of rock and our original equipment from someone who was getting rid of their pond. With my pond buddies we dug up the pond and trailered it all to our back yard where I down loaded everything with a hand cart and moved and placed it around the pond. It is about 3000 gal. You can just see the waterfall in the rear near the russian sage and the blue spruce (see *) My friend babysat our fish until we got the pond done and I immediately moved them in. No wait time. Everyone survived. The only fish I have had "give up the ghost" was a bass a friend brought from a local lake and that was at least 6 months after it moved in. I read once that you could tell Koi from other Koi-looking fish from the whiskers. If that is true I had 1 Koi and a few other Koi-looking fish, a group of blue gill, one finger sized bass and the now deceased 6 inch-ish bass. Within a few weeks of adding the fish someone had babies. One of my pond buddies wouldn't speak to me because he had been trying to figure out how to get his fish to reproduce to no avail. Anyway all the babies either went in the skimmer or in the blue gill! We have 1 pit/sheppard mix and 3 labs. The labs loved the pond and occasionally would go for a quick dip. I think they were really fishing.
Eventually Steve returned to normal and we built the bridge, transplanted the (*) blue spruce (holy cow! What a job!) which amazingly survived and finished the landscape and hardscape just in time to put it up for sale. So we are starting over here in Maryland.
I can't wait to get started.
So here goes: We have recently moved to Maryland from New Mexico. When our sons all three ended up here with the grandbabies, we sold the house and moved. 20+ years in the military made the move emotionally easy.
The pic shows our pond in New Mexico, but don't let it fool you, there was nothing verdant and green in our back yard except an awesome pecan tree and apricot tree(hence the shade.) Where the pond is was nothing but barren ground with a couple of stunted disease-ridden dwarf peach trees. Just after we moved into this house, husband Steve had hip replacement and was not able to help with the pond and as usual I did it myself. This was my third pond so I figured "I can do that, how hard can it be?" So I grabbed a shovel and built the whole thing by my self with the exception of the liner. Steve was recovered enough to help with that part. We got lots of rock and our original equipment from someone who was getting rid of their pond. With my pond buddies we dug up the pond and trailered it all to our back yard where I down loaded everything with a hand cart and moved and placed it around the pond. It is about 3000 gal. You can just see the waterfall in the rear near the russian sage and the blue spruce (see *) My friend babysat our fish until we got the pond done and I immediately moved them in. No wait time. Everyone survived. The only fish I have had "give up the ghost" was a bass a friend brought from a local lake and that was at least 6 months after it moved in. I read once that you could tell Koi from other Koi-looking fish from the whiskers. If that is true I had 1 Koi and a few other Koi-looking fish, a group of blue gill, one finger sized bass and the now deceased 6 inch-ish bass. Within a few weeks of adding the fish someone had babies. One of my pond buddies wouldn't speak to me because he had been trying to figure out how to get his fish to reproduce to no avail. Anyway all the babies either went in the skimmer or in the blue gill! We have 1 pit/sheppard mix and 3 labs. The labs loved the pond and occasionally would go for a quick dip. I think they were really fishing.
Eventually Steve returned to normal and we built the bridge, transplanted the (*) blue spruce (holy cow! What a job!) which amazingly survived and finished the landscape and hardscape just in time to put it up for sale. So we are starting over here in Maryland.
I can't wait to get started.
