The Puddlepond!

Out with the old and in with the new! Last summer, there was an incident involving a cottonmouth moccasin in my little puddlepond. Son and I were mulching the gardens when I discovered the unwanted visitor. It is not that I hate snakes but having one that is so vicious close to the house sort of bothers me. So, Son eradicated it! He slew the dragon with the pitchfork that he had in hand. He also skewered the pond liner! My little puddle of a pond now was more dry than wet. We caught and carted all of the minnows back to the Bayou and released them. I knew that they would be ok since that is where we got them in the first place. After several attempts at patching the liner with no luck, we merely forgot about it for a while. A long while! Then this week, the little dry pond got some much needed attention. He and I pondered just what to do to repair, replace or redesign this area. There were many ideas tossed around during our brainstorming. We could try to patch the liner with some different glue. We had already tried the glue that came with the patches and aquarium glue. Neither worked at all! The little puddlepond still leaked. We could turn the area into a bog garden! All we would have to do to achieve this is fill the pond with dirt and plant water loving plants. The liner could stay in place to hold rainwater around plants such as irises, elephant ear and water hyssop. Sounded good, but the puddlepond seemed awfully large when considering the amount of dirt needed to fill it and considering we would have to haul said dirt with a wheelbarrow. Hmmm..we could try replacing the liner. This would be an extreme amount of work as the entire puddlepond had a three inch deep layer of gravel covering it. Still, replacing the liner seemed like the best idea. We bucketed out all of the gravel. This chore was easier said than done. I do not want to even estimate how many pounds of gravel we pulled. I do know that there was a mountain of gravel sitting in the side yard when we were finished. Next we ripped out the old liner. Oops..I had forgotten that I had already replaced this once. There under the top liner was the old one. Well, at least that was rather clean. The new liner was cut into place and then the redesign work took place. Son wanted to create something that was in keeping with the Bayou theme ...maybe use some old pier boards or boat items. He scrounged around the yard and found all that he needed. Soon the little puddlepond took shape and the gravel could be layered back into the pond. Then the moment of truth..would this new design hold water or would all of the work be for naught. We were a mite worried that the old boards would float causing an avalanche of gravel to slide down from the sides. Slowly he filled the puddlepond. The design worked! Nothing was sliding down..nothing was floating..all was perfect! This part was a success, now to finish the surrounding area. The little puddlepond was decreased by a few square feet. Instead of being a sort of kidney shaped thing, it is now more of a hmmm ..maybe..just a puddle-shape (and size). The area that was cut off was filled with gravel as a focal point. At first, a ship's wheel was placed on the gravel but an anchor soon took its place. I like the new little puddlepond. It will suffice in what it was created to do which is be a drain for rain runoff. Before this was put into place, rain that poured off of the roof of the Bayou House was eroding huge ruts in the hill. Now that the puddlepond is back in working order, I won't have to worry about falling into a ravine each time it rains! (Not that I ever had before and perhaps ravine is too strong of a word..indentation might be more accurate.) Anyway, along the length of the house, there is a runnel to catch the water. (As an explanation..a runnel is a ditch used to channel water much like a gutter would. Mine is a gravel-lined ditch along the side of the house.) From the puddlepond to the head of the runnel he ran a tubing and connected it to an submerged pump. Now it looks like I have a creek babbling along side of the house through the flower garden! A small wooden bridge spans this "creek" and leads to the front door. Yes, I like my little puddlepond, my little wooden bridge and my faux creek! I think Son should be a landscape designer!