For our devoted readers who have gotten all the way through the heron story, and for those not interested in the history of our pond development, we start with some pictures of the finished product:
The Pond in all its summer glory
Our fish engaged in the serious business of eating
When building a house, decisions have to be made about the order in which construction will proceed. Often these decisions are dictated by practical considerations, such as "You must put in the electrical wiring before you paint the walls." Similarly, you need to have finished putting up the siding, brick and other exterior elements before you begin grading the landscape, and you need to grade the landscape before you can put down grass and walkways.
Although we had a lot of infrastructure work to do this year, we decided to begin working on some purely ornamental aspects as well. There was only one thing on Jay's list that was a "must." Jay didn't care if we did nothing else on the house this year, so long as we did the work necessary to put in a koi pond and a surrounding bluestone patio.
The first koi pond design was not so good. Basically, if there was ever an electrical outage the water would flow swiftly into a lower pond and the fish would all die. Pretty design, bad plan.
Luckily, the Davids side of the family ran into someone in Woodstock who does fish ponds and is really into his craft. Suffice it to say, Ken of Waterscapes spent his April building us a koi pond!
For your enjoyment, the recipe for how we are building our pond:
First, dig a deep hole and measure it carefully.
[Picture to come]
This leaves you with a big pile of dirt. Eventually, they will drape this pile with irrigation lines so that you can fill the pond with water from the natural pond. If you try, you can find a use for this dirt on your own property so you don't have to pay to truck it away. Because our property has such a steep incline, we will use it to help fix the grade on the lower levels of the property. In years to come, when we have a rolling green lawn reaching from the Koi Pond to the natural pond, we will know that some of the dirt to create that lawn came from the Koi Pond. What this will do for us, we have no idea.
Click Here for Picture of Dirt Pile and Irrigation Lines
Then, create ledges for plants to sit on and a border to put the big rocks on (and take a silly picture of your genius Koi Pond designer):
Click Here for Picture of Hole
Now, find a shady spot, put down a cement slab and re-engineer the filtration system, to make it easier to clean the screen:
Click Here for Picture of Filter Modification
Next, put in the under-liner, and tape it together with duct tape. If you are really lucky, the natural design of your pond will include stairs so that you can swim with the fishes.
Click Here for Ken and the Under-liner
At last, the ultra-cool, pitch black special-ordered from Europe gets laid into the hole. This liner is so cool, even Ford Prefect would want one.
And then a big pile of rocks gets delivered on a rainy Sunday. Eventually, the liner, the hole and the rocks will combine with the water from the irrigation lines and like magic there will be a koi pond.
Click Here for Picture of Rock Pile
Monday dawns a beautiful day, and the Koi Pond developers decide to use the force of the water to help get the liner to lay flat. Unfortunately, we don't have a picture of them scrubbing the black liner and pumping out the water that gathered during the weekend rain. Suffice it to say that before the pond was filled, you could eat off of the liner with no risk of harm. Eventually, the black liner will be covered with green algae and will look very natural. In the meantime, we have black duct tape (actually, Ken informs me that it is special tape for working with the Koi pond liner). While this is going on, we have serious conversations with our Koi resource about how to go about getting our first load of fish. We will start with 10-15 basic Koi -- nothing too exotic. When the filter has been running for 6 weeks, we will add another 10-15 more exotic Koi. The second group we will add more slowly, as we wait for our dream fish to arrive.
Click Here for Picture of Initial Filling
Tuesday dawns bright and clear, and we have hope that there will be fish swimming around by the beginning of next week. Unbelievable. In the meantime, work continues on the liner and the filling. Interestingly, this is done by donning appropriate rubber attire and climbing into the pond. Unfortunately, as beautiful as the day is, it's a wee bit cold outside. This is not something I would want to do.
On Wednesday we are blessed with the third clear crisp day in a row. It's a little like a perfect early fall day, but the air is kissed with the promise of sun and summer instead of winter and snow. Take advantage of days like this -- the forecast is rain for tomorrow. Not that the forecasts have been right so far. Today the heavy machinery comes in to bring the big rocks to the pond and set them just right.
Ken searches far and wide to find just the perfect rocks and stones. Happily, we are on rocky land, so he manages just fine.
Click Here for the Rock Search
Meanwhile, back at the pond, the crew works hard to set the rocks for the waterfall.
Click Here for the Waterfall Rock Formation
On Thursday, the final walls are set and water begins to flow. Mother Nature takes the hint and sends water flowing in the form of rainfalls.
Click Here for Finalizing the Waterfall Rock Formation
Click Here for the Waterfall in Motion
The developers realize what we have known all along -- the natural grading on our property is less than helpful. As a result, they recommend building up the north wall of the pond, so that the pond will look level.
Click Here for the North Wall Build-up
On Thursday Shoshana went on an outing to our aquarium and koi fish supplier to check on the aquarium fish (you might notice a new White Spotted File Fish in the live shot of the gym aquarium -- he seems to have settled in nicely!) and to select our first group of koi. We are taking the same approach we did with the aquariums: with Ken's help we will work toward a balance of coloration in the pond, keeping in mind the lining color and the surrounding environment. Some koi types we will identify as fish that we are certain we will eventually add to the pond (for example, we are looking for a black koi with a red stomach, so that it will be visible as a red flash against the black lining). Others we will identify as fish we would like to have, depending on availability and what is in the pond. Keeping all of that in mind, and with a few teleconferences from the store with Jay, we picked the first 11 fish. We were surprised by the beauty of the goldfish, so the 11 includes 8 koi and 3 goldfish. But don't be fooled -- the blue fish and the red fish are both goldfish, while the gold fish is a koi. They are schooling together, but because they are new in the pond, they aren't all ready for their close-ups. These few decided to pose, however:
We are trying to train the koi to be fed by hand, and we hope to get better pictures of the fish up here soon. In the meantime, Monday dawns with new work on the pond. There is a filter to get up and running, rocks to be placed, pipes to be buried for the waterfall and filtration . . . Plenty to be done to make the new koi as happy as they can be!
| Digging Filtration Trenches | Laying Filtration Pipes |
| Filtration Drainage Pipes | The Filtration System |
Also, it is finally time to start setting the gravel around the pond. We will have some areas with gravel, and the area near the Hot Tub will be an irregular bluestone patio. Up by the waterfall, we are going to place a gliding bench (a bench that is on gliders, so it can rock), which we hope will arrive before Memorial Day.
Click Here for Setting the Gravel
A minor filtration glitch led to a slight lowering of the pond level. Therefore, the pipe bringing water from the big pond had to be brought over again, and water added to the pond. Ken and his crew diagnosed and solved the problem with alacrity!
Click Here for Pond Filling (and a view of the gravel under the deck)
Then, it is time to adjust the waterfall so that the water looks almost like a sheet of water. To do this, we need to add on to the waterfall pipe, paint the add-on black and finally arrange the rocks to hide the pipe.
Click Here for A View of the Revised Waterfall
On Saturday, we took the opportunity to go up to Kingston to meet with Ken the Koi Pond Man. We went fishing in his pond for some new additions to our pond. He has an amazing selection.
Click Here for Picture of Ken's Pond (TO COME LATER)
And we chose six that we just adore. We placed them carefully, three in a bag, each bag in a box, and both boxes in the trunk. After driving the fish carefully back home (the fish are too young to drive, but we intend to train them once they are 17 years old), we placed the bags in the pond to acclimate the fish. The acclimation process involves letting the temperature of the water in the bags come back down gradually to the temperature of the pond, so that the fish are not too shocked by the cold.
| Click Here for Floating Bag One | Click Here for Floating Bag Two |
And then, the fish are released. We watched for a long time, as they swam around and around learning their new home. The Orange and White Kohaku that was already in the pond originally showed them around. Now, an hour later, they are busy chasing him around -- just so he knows that he is not King of the World (frankly, the fish are all cuter than Leonardo DiCaprio, but that is just our opinion). (The powder blue one refused to pose -- we'll catch her later.)
And now, we wait. The Northeast will not have a drought this summer -- we have had 12 successive days of rain. The landscape developer is tearing his hair out, and the fish are sad as dirt keeps floating into the pond. As soon as anything new happens, you will see it here first!
Well, believe it or not, two days later, the very day after we wrote the preceding paragraph, the landscape developer came by to review the plans. That's the good news. The bad news is that the one tree that the builders left in front of the house is dead -- the cause of death is probably burial under construction debris during the building of the house. If there are no buds in two weeks, the tree will have to come down and be replaced. Oh well. Another day, another project.
Meanwhile, work began on Thursday. We got a new pile of rocks, but this time it's bluestone.
First step, dig down below the level of the gravel, so that everything will be on one level when you are done. This means digging back up the pipes, conduits and wires that the Koi gurus buried so nicely.
Click Here for Undoing What Was Done Before
Next, lay a bed of gravel and put stone dust on top to create a bed for the bluestone. Then, cart over the bluestone one at a time. It looks bigger standing up than it will when it is part of the patio.
| Click Here for Gravel Bed | Click Here for Big Bluestone |
After laboring Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the two men have made good progress. The fish are getting a little jumpy when the electric stone cutter is at work, but they seem to be settling down quickly at the end of the day. In fact, two of the little ones who hid for almost a full week after the big ones were introduced have resurfaced in the middle of all this work, if only for a few minutes. We only have one little one in hiding.
Click Here for Saturday Afternoon Status
Work is drawing to a close on the pond and its immediate environs. The final steps involve finishing the patio, placing the bench and putting in the water plants.
Click Here for Before the Plants
We are very lucky that the koi and goldfish don't seem to mind the work. They are acting happier and happier every day. Even the workers have been commenting on how much fun it is to watch the koi jump and frolick.
Now the work is nearly done, and Ken carefully prepares to put in the water plants. It looks like he is just playing, but now that we have seen the plants growing, we realize that he laid them out in a manner that maximizes their effect as they grow.
| Ken Playing with Plants | The Plant Toss | Hey Kids, Don't Try This At Home |
In early July, we ran into a problem with the pond. Because we use the water from the big pond to fill the koi pond, we had significant algae growth. It was a little smelly and we (read: Shoshana, and once even Shoshana's dad) were skimming the pond twice a day, for at least 1/2 hour at a time. Therefore, we decided to try an algae treatment. Unfortunately, the treatment was very effective and the dead algae de-oxygenated the water. End result: we spent four hours, beginning at 6am, pulling fish out of the pond and putting them in buckets with fresh pond water and oxygenation tablets. We also did a 50% water change -- no small feat when there are 7,000 gallons of water. We lost the platinum ogon and two other koi, but managed to save everyone else. We received three fish as a Jay birthday present, and bought a small white koi. We also replaced the lost powder blue fish.
Then, all was well until . . . the GIANT BLUE HERON showed up. What a beast. The primary domestic predator of the koi, and very interested in our pond. Imagine seeing a slate blue bird, over 3 feet tall and with a wingspan even longer than that, and it is perched on your porch, at your eye level when you are in bed. Now imagine that as you look at this beautiful bird, you are fully aware (at 5:30 in the morning) that it has only one thing in mind: koi for breakfast. We could not have been more scared if a velociraptor came to visit.
We thought we had the herons licked with a new motion detector that makes a nasty noise, but recently they have been decending like a plague -- 3 or 4 a day. Usually at dawn or dusk, their favorite hunting times, but sometimes they ride in on a northwesterly wind in the middle of the day. We really have to thank the Audubon society for attracting them to the area with a BEAUTIFUL reserve just a few miles from here!! In the end we lost two fish. Interestingly, it was the two that survived the algae trauma with the most difficulty, so we comfort ourselves with the knowledge that they might not have made it through the winter anyway. Now, we have covered the pond with netting -- thanks to the fast actions of Ken the Amazing Pond Man and Jay the Intrepid.
With the fish safe, we have been watching the herons hunt. They land 15 feet away from the pond, and walk toward it. When they set off the alarm, sometimes they fly away and try to approach from a different direction. At other times, the birds stand stock still for upwards of 10 minutes trying to figure out what is going on and how to get at the fish. As long as they don't get at the fish, we have the opportunity to marvel at how beautiful and smart these birds are, and how well adapted they are to fishing for koi. The adults are slate blue, but the juveniles are closer to gray, with a dark gray band around the outside edge of their outstretched wings (an honest thank you to the Audubon society for answering our questions and helping us identify the birds). Amazing, but frightening at the same time. Dorothy, you aren't in NYC anymor
