The Kaser's Pond Page

For a long time we've wanted a garden pond with "running water," but somehow we'd never gotten around to it (life is busy, you know?) Two years ago, my dad decided to put in a pond, and I helped him dig it and watched his progress. Experiencing the "finished product," we decided the time was right, and I got out the shovel and started digging. Yes, I dug the whole thing by hand...11 feet wide, 16 feet long, 2 feet deep at the waterfall end, 3 feet deep at the other end. I started fairly late in the summer, and wasn't in a hurry to get it finished that summer. But then, after the hole was mostly dug, I realized it would NOT be a good thing to leave the hole "bare to the elements" with the November Monsoons that we get in western Oregon, so I figured I'd have to put the liner in to protect the sides from erosion. But that meant it would collect water, and then mosquitoes would breed in it, so I really needed to put in fish too, to eat the mosquito larvae. But that meant that I really should put in the pump too, to circulate the water.... well, it suddenly became a crash-program to get it pretty well setup that fall. Luckily, I survived the experience. Last summer was spent building the deck around the pond, finishing the "rock landscaping around the pond and the "stream bed", and planting lots of plants (Sharon's job). This year's project is to finish walk-ways, a shade cover over the east/southeast end, and landscaping around the deck. (Not to mention other little projects like painting the trim on the house...)

The pond actually consists of two ponds, the larger (main) lower one and a smaller oval 6 foot by 9 foot by 18" deep upper pond, connected by about 25-30 feet of "stream-bed/water fall." The pump is in the lower pond, and it pumps the water up to two 55-gallon "barrel filters" (biological filters) that are buried in the mound of dirt that holds the upper pond. The water flows through the filters and out into the upper pond, and thence down the stream-bed and back into the lower pond. There's a 12" wide shelf that runs around 3/4 of the lower pond upon which water plants are sitting. Three water lilies are sitting in the pond on up-turned plastic 1/2 barrels with flat rocks stacked on top of them. Everything's working well except for the fight with the algae-bloom each spring. That's what the shade cover is for, to keep the sun off of 1/2 of the pond during the morning and early afternoon, because the algae loves sunlight. There are trees to the west of the pond which shade the pond in the afternoon, and the water lilies (which require at least 5 hours of direct sunlight a day in order to bloom) block a lot of the sun from the western end of the pond. So, the shade cover is being designed to shade the east end of the pond through the morning until noon or 1pm, while NOT shading the water lilies, and the trees on the west end shade the whole pond by about 3pm. Of course, the trees are a big pain in the fall, because all of their leaves seem to be targeted right at the pond, so we have to put bird-netting over the pond in the fall to keep the leaves out of the water. You don't want leaves in the water, because they rot there, which releases nutrients into the water upon which the algae feeds... No one said it was going to be easy. :-)

Unless you have Superman Eyes, you won't be able to see much from the thumbprints below, but click on a picture and see it large enough to sort of recognize things. However, each picture is anywhere from 100 Kbytes to 230 Kbytes, so if you're on a modem, be patient.

January 2000 #1	One of those clear, cold days we get in January, with incredibly bright sunshine (after several months of dismal gray darkness), but a heavy frost because, with clear skies, the temperature plummets at night. This shows the upper pond. The small group of rocks at the top-left surround (attempt to hide) the 2 55-gal barrel filters. The water flows out of them through a cleverly hidden pipe into the upper pond, and thence over the small waterfall in the middle of the picture, and downstream to the left in the foreground.
January 2000 #2	A slightly different angle, showing both the upper and lower ponds. Brrr.
January 2000 #3	From down on the deck, looking back at the upper pond and our house in the background.
February 2000	A look down into the lower pond, back before the algae bloom when the water was extremely clear. Here you can JUST see the underwater ledge that runs around the edge for plants to sit on, you can clearly see the three water lily plants (minus most of their leaves) sitting on the their tubs, and the fish.
March 2000	This is the picture of Jeremiah, the frog that was with us all of last spring, summer, winter, and this spring until about sometime in April when he disappeared.
April 2000 #1	A more distant shot, showing the pond area from a different angle, the cherry trees in bloom, everything turning green again, and (of course) Max and his ball.
April 2000 #2	The view from the upper pond again, with Max's doghouse and the kid's old tree house in the background. The doghouse has been moved now to make way for flowerbeds and landscaping (Max doesn't use it anyway, he sleeps on the porch), and the tree-house will be torn down this summer, as it's falling down already and is unsafe.
May 2000 #1	The upper pond area and streambed. Things are really growing well now.
May 2000 #2	The view from the deck of the streambed and the lower pond, with the gargoyle watching over the lower waterfall. (The gargoyle is the little stone guy in the foreground...the other one with the bright, shiny forehead is some gargoyle-wannabe loser guy.)
June 2000 #1	From the deck again. Things are nice and green now, growing fast. You can see the walkway that I've built in the last couple of weeks going up from the deck along the streambed. A stone walkway will take over from there, on over to the driveway.
June 2000 #2	A picture taken on a VERY sunny day with the camera set to let in less light. This makes the water very dark, but makes the water lily leaves about the right color and the water lily blossoms visible (instead of just a fuzzy ball of white). I asked Sharon about the name of the flower in the foreground. She didn't recall the name, but was pretty sure that it was a flowering reed of some sort, and pretty sure that it was not a lily or such.