Magic...and the Pond

                                                by Laura Crum

            This post is for those of you who expressed an interest in my pond/natural swimming pool project that I wrote about last summer. Some people were curious about how the pond would work out over time and how I would cope with algae…etc. So today I am going to give an update on the pond/pool. (Once again, not a horse or writing related post—sorry.)

            When we built the pond, it was pristine and clear, but devoid of life. Over time we planted water plants and various creatures came. I added mosquito fish to eat the mosquito wigglers, a frog showed up, as did water striders, and eventually dragonflies came and laid their eggs, and we got to watch them turn from underwater nymphs into flying dragons—an amazing process. 

            The pond was lovely in different lights—morning and evening. Water lilies bloomed. We floated in the pond and sat by it and jumped and waded in it and enjoyed it very much. 

            Algae did grow. First the pond became pea soup green. That cleared up in a month or so and filament algae began to grow. We coped with the filament algae by scrubbing it off the rocks and weeding it out. We had heard that it took a couple of years for these ponds to get into balance so we tried to be patient.

            Then my husband got sick and through the fall I had little attention to spare for the pond. The filament algae coated the sides like a heavy growth of moss, though the water stayed clear. Andy and I would talk about the pond, and he encouraged me to get it cleaned out and start over and use some products to control the algae—experiment a little. He told me what he used on the drainage ponds at his greenhouses at work—and he pointed out that he had no algae there, but frogs came. And we had read that frogs were the barometer of whether water was healthy.

            After Andy died I determined to follow his advice. I had the pond pumped out and the algae power washed away. Then I refilled it and began to experiment with different algae products. Eventually I settled on the one Andy had used at work—at the lowest possible dose. The fish seemed fine. The water plants seemed fine. And lo and behold, in February, frogs showed up.

            The frogs croaked and sang every evening, and by the end of the month we had tadpoles—lots of tadpoles. And this made me happy because surely the pond was healthy if frogs could produce their young. Birds bathed in the fountain, animals drank from the pond, and I found dragonfly nymphs crawling among the water plants. The water lilies came back from their winter dormancy and put up new leaves. There is some algae but not too much algae. It looks like my grand experiment is working.

            I took a few photos last month, and I will post them here for those who are interested. The pond has been a great comfort to me in this sad time. I sit by it a lot and listen to the gentle trickle sound of the little fountain that Andy designed, I put my feet in the water and float in it on warm days. And I look at every stone with the knowledge that Andy and I picked them out together and set them in their places. The pond is our joint creation—and I am so grateful for that.

            In the evening I make a cocktail—and I make one for Andy. I clink our glasses, just as we used to do, and say, “Here’s to us.” And then I sit by the pool and watch the reflections and ripples and listen to the frogs and the sound of the water. The birds come within a few feet of me and take their baths. Last night a frog appeared near my feet. I talk to Andy as I watch the light change in the evening sky. And there is a part of me that knows that he is there with me—though he doesn’t finish his drink. But that’s no problem, as I do it for him. He doesn’t mind.

            Anyway, for those who aren’t interested in my rambling about spirits and the after life…etc, the pond is undeniably real, and (at least to me) undeniably lovely. The magic that is present in a body of water, even a small body of water, is, I think, the most accessible, ordinary magic that there is in this world. Ordinary magic, yes. But none the less-- magic.

The photos in this post were taken in February of this year.

                         Morning

            Looking down into the deep water.

                             Evening

            The pond has been truly magical for me. It is a project and requires attention and time, just like a horse or a garden or a child or a dog. But it is infinitely worth that effort. There are those who choose a chlorinated pool and a concrete patio surrounded by plastic grass—and I am sure the work involved is much less. However, I have a feeling that the rewards are proportional. Just a guess.

Pool Saga--Part 2

by Laura Crum

I apologize in advance for boring most of you horse folks with this completely not-horse-related story. But here is the rest of my “pool saga” (with photos) for those who are interested.

            I planned and schemed endlessly during the winter before we built the pond. I drew little maps showing where each boulder should go. There was an “island rock” here, and a couple of big “blocker rocks” there, and a pointy rock by the mini “dock” we would build to hide the skimmer and submersible pump. The pointy rock would be matched by another pointy rock on the nearby hillside, and there would be a dozen boulders in a sort of rocky vein on the hillside—which would help the pool tie into the landscape. Just add a constant chain of ideas and thoughts (and sketches and lists of things to think about) along these lines and you get the idea of the way I spent my time.

            I left the technical aspects of the pool construction (choice of liner, pipes and other infrastructure) up to Tim of Pond Magic, figuring he would know how to do this stuff after building 300 ponds.

As the date of actual construction on my project approached, I began spending a lot of time at the local “rock yard.” My husband and son began to hate the sound of the words “rock yard,” and soon refused to accompany me. I went down there two or three times a week, choosing boulders, and “singlehead” stacking stone, and flagstone and so on. I spent hours at a time there, just looking at rocks. All the kinds of stone I thought I’d need for the project.

            I learned a whole lot about buying stone. I learned the process (you tag it and then the yard guys will assemble everything you tag in a place for reserved material and then you can look at it all together in one spot—very helpful), I learned that you buy stone by the pound-or ton- and I learned to estimate the weight pretty accurately (I used to buy cattle, so estimating weight came readily to me), I learned which kinds of stone were FAR more expensive than others. Over a two month period, I selected a lot of stone for my pool.

            There were boulders for the pool rim and the hillside next to it, there was stacking stone for the dry-stone walls, there was flagstone for the floor, steps and surround, there were cobbles and gravel for the planting bed and ledge-stone for the wall around the planting bed. It was a big and interesting process, learning about and selecting stone. It took a lot of time, but I very much enjoyed it. I was quite surprised when Tim told me that virtually every other client he had ever had had left this process up to him. To me, that’s like giving away the most fun and creative part, or like owning a horse and always having someone else ride it.

            Anyway, I did the work, selected the rock, and, eventually, wrote a check and had it delivered. Now we were truly embarked. And I must admit, I was pretty nervous.

            This was a big project for me, and it was also a rather illogical project. Not like building a house, which seems quite logical. We didn’t need a pool. As my husband pointed out, we were digging a big hole in a perfectly good driveway. But I was still pretty sure I wanted to do it. I’m the one who has always owned horses, after all. I understood the point behind making illogical dreams come true.

            So construction day arrived, the crew and backhoe showed up, and everything began to happen at once. Seriously.

            If you have never done a big construction project, or never done one where you were truly in charge of it, you probably can’t grasp the intensity of the process. You literally can’t look away for a second. It is tremendously creative and rewarding and also very stressful at times. Sort of like training horses.

            Anyway, I had previously designed and built two small houses, a big garden, and a horse set-up, and I knew more or less what to expect and how to deal with it. I had asked for and gotten from Tim a proposed timeline for the project. I had taken EVERYTHING out of my schedule for the projected two weeks of construction and I was prepared for the intensity. I had done what you need to do—thought hard and planned for everything I could, and also accepted that some (many) things would not go according to plan and many last minute changes would happen. I also knew that these last minute changes often created the most interesting aspects of a project. I knew that the contractor and I would be at odds from time to time and that tempers would fray, and I knew this was natural and OK. We all crossed our fingers things would go relatively smoothly, and bright and early in the morning the backhoe began placing boulders on the hillside, to my directions.

            By noon we were digging the hole for the pool and by the end of the day we had, as my husband said, dug a very big hole in our perfectly good driveway.

            And placed some lovely rocks on the hillside nearby.

            The next day the pond liner went in.

            The dry stone walls were built.

            The following day the backhoe began placing the large boulders around the pool.

            Now I’m going to skip forward in the interests of not boring you—below you see my son and a friend on the last day the crew was here, as we watched the pool fill with water. This gives you a good view of the stone steps leading in and the wall that divides the plant area from the “swimming” area. Bear in mind that every single stone that forms the steps and is placed around the edge was individually chosen for its position. A very creative, very intense process. All the stone is natural stone, some quarried, some not. There are no concrete pavers or man-made bricks involved.

            My husband adds a little water to our whisky for the celebratory drink as we finish filling the pool. This was a very happy moment.

            Here you look down into the “deep hole” (about five feet deep), with its sunken patio floor.

            Here’s the fountain (designed by my husband and carved from our chosen piece of stone by one of the crew) in the early morning light.

            Boy in the water—my son enjoying the pool on its first day of being—which just happened to be an eighty degree day. Serendipity.

            Last light and reflections of roses at the end of the day.

            If you look closely at these photos you will see that we haven’t finished trimming the liner and placing gravel all around the pool, nor have we put the plants in the plant area. We are slowly but surely accomplishing these tasks ourselves, as we are well able to do these things on our own…and construction crews are expensive. We let the crew go as soon as we could and I’m happy to say that the project came in on time and very close to our estimate. So far so good.

            We are really enjoying our little pool, and though I know the future will hold challenges—natural pools are living things, just like horses, and they have their ups and downs—I very much look forward to living with/by/in water.

            (Hope I didn’t bore you all too much. Those who are interested, feel free to ask questions. I sort of abbreviated much that went into the planning and building, because I felt the post would just become too tedious.)