A backyard of mowing grass, a man with a shovel and an idea, and a koi pond with a 22 foot stream and waterfalls. Every hole, pipe and barrel built by hand, and written up so anyone could build their own.
Bill told the build as a backyard fable. Here it is in his words, with the photos he took along the way.
Once upon a time there was a yard. A BIG yard. This yard was with grass. The mowing type of grass. And this grass multiplied. And the mowing continued. Then it came upon the caretaker this vision that perhaps the mass with less grass would be less task to mow the mass of grass. So he began to wonder and ponder about a pond. And he said it was good.
But, less grass and then less dirt meant more work. This was not so good, because less dirt meant moving the said dirt from the said hole to a hill. He thought he was becoming ill. And the work became more work. Who meant for there to be cement?
And the animals were amazed at what the creator had done. Even the 'little' hole (4 x 6, 32" deep) seemed like too much for a mole.
Now the hole had to be protected from all those rocks, and sticks, and roots, oh my! The creator thought a good protection for the addition was to use used carpet. And the carpet guy says, "take it away, take it all". And again he said this was good. And the ground became rubber? Wait, let me re-read that last line. Yep, it is rubber all right.
Then there was water. Lots of water. This is the small pond, and do you know a 4 x 6, 32" deep hole holds 380 gallons of water? Take a guess at what a 14 x 16, 32" deep hole will hold. Would you believe 3,524 gallons? And I never mentioned the 22 foot stream with waterfalls. Add another 165 gallons. And three 55 gallon barrels for the filter system add another 165. 4,234 gallons of water! And he said it was good.....
And it sounds and feels like a mountain stream in Colorado.... tastes like wild hickory nuts.... Ahhh... this is heaven..... But water has a way of going down, and flowing UP hill it has a problem. How does that happen? The creator used an idea he borrowed from a guy named Edison, who made a "shocking" discovery a loonnnggg time ago. And it was like magic, the water just went up and flowed down, up and flowed down. The water never stopped (until the ice storm cut the power off). An Artesian well! Wow! How did he do that?
The technical side: plumbing, filters and pumps, most of it built from barrels, PVC and hardware store parts. Water runs skimmer, vortex, bio-filter, trickle tower, then back down the stream.
Water flows into the skimmer, where a net across two thirds of the barrel catches leaves, sticks and anything else floating. An orange float works like the one in a toilet tank: it is tied to the irrigation well line and keeps the pond at a constant level. Well water means no chlorine to deal with. A bottom drain flushes out whatever the net misses, and a 3 in PVC line carries water on to the vortex filter.
Gravity feeds water from the pond through a 3 in 45 degree elbow that sets it spinning. Heavy material settles to the bottom, and clean water exits through the center standpipe. A capped cross piece at the bottom makes the legs. Bill made the cone from linoleum and rivets.
One master switch in the pump box cuts both pumps, and the whole circuit runs on a GFI breaker at the house.
The bio-filter is bottom fed: water enters low and exits high, through about 1,300 feet of plastic strapping that gives bacteria room to grow. The trickle tower is top fed through a spray bar and holds 6 bags of rinsed lava rock kept out of the water, an oxygen rich home for the bacteria that clear ammonia and nitrites. In Bill's words, he would not have a pond without one: gin clear water all the time, no more pea soup.
A plastic grate sits about 8 in off the bottom of each barrel so the media never plugs the inlet or the drain.
Each pond has a bottom drain made from a pair of toilet flange seal rings and rubber wax rings, with 2 extra brass bolts for a better seal. A 3 in hole was cut in the liner and clamped between them, so fish waste and gunk can be flushed out. Topping it off: an upside down dark cereal bowl.
Koi, shubunkins, comets and more, plus a few residents who moved in on their own.
Lilies, umbrella palm, ferns, irises and more. And the gunnera, which Bill called dinosaur food.
The pond was not the end of it. A shishi odoshi, a cedar arbor, a yard swing, a garden path, a garden cart, a storage building and a patio.
Built with a plastic path form about 18 x 18 x 1.5 in. The edges look irregular but the blocks interlock side by side.
"My next project!!!" A bigger pond on the new place Bill called the ranch, and this time he brought help: a John Deere 350-B.
