What's new? Water & fish

Yes, there’s water in the pond, and we have ten little goldfish shivering in the bottom of it. When I was researching ponds, I read a comment by someone who recommended getting two dozen feeder fish because he thought it was neat watching them swim in schools and besides the raccoons like to eat your expensive bigger fish. But now I’m worried that these little guys won’t survive the shock of the chilly water (probably less than 70 degrees). Oh, I guess I needed something else to worry about.

Yesterday I finished the digging and shaping.

The ragged edge at about 10 o'clock on the upper ledge is a tree root that I decided to leave - for the benefit of the tree and for me. It happened to be in a reasonable place, too.

This is a typical ME situation. I decided to make the pond deeper than the directions said (18 inches didn't seem deep enough), neglecting to realize that the liner was sized for that depth. Geometry does have consequences. So after I laid DH's cornflower blue (purple) waterproof nylon fabric for underlayment, then laid the liner in place, no matter what I did, it wasn't quite wide enough to make a good edge on the left side. So out came the liner, up came the underlayment, and in went more dirt to raise the bottom. Back went the underlayment, back went the liner, but it didn't make sufficient difference. Didn't want to repeat that routine again, so I scooped the gravel off the purple stuff, pulled out the bricks (which I thought would have made a nice lip), and put the bricks on top of the liner. Sometimes being me is not to my advantage.

And here's the result which didn't make me real happy. I don't like the bricks showing which demands replacing them with something else that will cost money. Yuck! But I'll think about that later. I vacuumed the dirt out and...

Added water!! And the pump and fountain. DH helped with this part. Since the pond was deeper, the pipe on the pump was too short. More jerry-rigging. Thank goodness for 1/2" poly tubing and black electrical tape. Supposed to be 200 gallons. Who knows what mine is with the Sherry-modifications. I do love the fountain.

I have a Sherry-plan (similar to jerry-rigging, I'm afraid) for the stonework around the edge. I have never liked the typical flagstone/boulder configurations on most ponds I've seen. They're never very realistic plus they require tons of money. So I'm working on some ideas with realism at their core. We'll see.

It occurs to me that I should not be showing you these photos, because the project isn't finished and it still looks like c**p. That's the old perfectionist in me, the one who keeps everyone out until the job is done and tries not to let on what a near disaster it was. However, this is a new era of tell-all, show-all, reality programming, er, blogging. You get the blow-by-blow whole story. And my stomach feels queezy.

Perhaps you noticed in the last picture, and you can definitely see in this one the empty spots, portions of the garden devoid of roses. Remember? They moved away to Cyd's house, and planting their replacements is what I should have been doing while I was doing this.

DH still needs to put the wiring in conduit. In the meantime we're hoping Code Enforcement doesn't drop by. That black electrical tape really does come in handy especially since the sprinkler is right there. Can we spell electrocution?

Here are the babies getting acclimated to their new environment late this afternoon.

Positively the worst photo ever seen on any blog, foreign or domestic. Oh, my gosh! They'll be taking my award away. At late dusk focusing was nigh onto impossible for the babies' grand release. But it could not go unrecorded.

'Mrs. B. R. Cant' is really liking the cool weather.

I was very thrilled today to finally see buds on my potted Camellia sasanqua Pink, since sasanquas are already blooming elsewhere. I just googled the name 'Sasanqua Pink' that was on the Walmart tag. Typical! It's their generic name. Hmmm. I might oughta check out Walmart's garden department for more of these beauties. As long as they'll live in pots, they seem to like my garden and it's neutral ground. The only thing is I thought it was white. Did the white one die?

And look what's blooming in the front!! These are the roses I bought at the Rose Festival. On the left (out of the photo) is 'Mister Lincoln' on Fortuniana, then the deep red one has no ID but plenty of fragrance also on Fort, then comes 'Iridescent Pink', and 'Bonica'.

You know I have a pathetic weakness for obnoxiously pink roses with zillions of petals. This rose was also loaded with buds, and I about died getting it to the cashier while my heart was doing back flips. After purchasing her I found out she's a great rose here by a wonderful hybridizer from Tampa (I think) who is a member of our rose society and a Master Rosarian. You did great, Jim!!!

Such fat blooms!!

And as if her face and voluptuous body were not enough, 'Iridescent Pink' is fragrant!!

Well, I'm back to reds hating me. This rose in not this color. It's a very deep red, burgundy really, and the outer petals have a white streak in them after they've aged. So just imagine the wined colored rose that isn't here.

Oh! And this afternoon a hawk swooped down over ‘Mrs. B. R. Cant’, between the two huge oaks and pounced on a snake in the field behind my neighbor's house, then carried him up on her roof! Amazing.

The snake was wiggling and flipping his tail, but the hawk was having none of it.

Please forgive this grainy photo, but he was a good 50 feet away on top of the roof, and my camera (which I love) has a wimpy zoom. See the snake?

I guess the hawk isn't afraid of snakes like I am. No way I'd be up on that roof with a snake wrapped around my foot. Gives me the willies! Hey, Mr. Hawk! Stay away from my goldfish!!