Took the day off from work Friday and dug the hole for my new pond skimmer/ pump assembly. I have been looking for the right set up for a while and finally found it at a local garden center,  Sunnyside, out on Rt 65 outside Sharpsburg, MD. They had one installed in their large water garden and one of the guys took the time to show me how it works.  It has a removable skimmer basket that is easy to empty and a filter mat for biological filtering as well. It was not cheap but it is going to save me alot of work unclogging my pump. I managed to get it all plumbed (2 trips to home depot) and leveled and then we reworked some of the liner and rock on the edges today. We got all the water  and muck emptied out last weekend and  hauled more than 6 wagon loads of smelly ooze to the garden. Today I tilled it in and its ready for corn and buckwheat.

It took awhile to fill the pond up with water when we finally finished today, so I went riding. Mara, my horse has been getting kind of crazy lately because I have not been riding her enough. Sometimes she acts like I am a scarey monster and I can’t get near her at all. She always comes around for dinner time time though so I’ve got her number.

Now that the pond is full I have turned on the pump, which is very quiet, and the waterfall is running full.  I still have to clean up the garden and the sitting area around  it but it so nice to hear it again. It is a very soothing sound and I am hopingto sleep toit will help me to sleep better. It has been about 2 years since I have had a functional pump and the critters have missed it as much as I have. The birds found it again within minutes of me starting it up. They love to take baths in the shallow areas of the waterfalls. Hopefully the way we have shored up the edge where the deer always drink will keep the far side liner from slipping. We redug the ledge and used much larger rocks to stabiliae it this time. It is alot easier to work on when it is dry. I was wearing hip waders when working on it last weekend.

I will post some pictures and write some more when we have some rainy days, which looks like later this week.