Thank God Almighty

It is done. Sort of. The rock hauling is done. That is the most important thing. No more rubber liner is visible unless you get in close and look for it. The pond scum maintenance technician is the only person likely to do that.

The skimmer still needs to disappear. I found out this evening there is a $200 fake rock made to cover it. I will be opting for fake. I won't be lifting heavy rocks off this thing every week to clean the filters. I am so over that.

The filter falls still needs to disappear. There is no fake rock sized to fit this. One is very close. With a real rock assist, that will just have to do. The filters in there will need cleaning once a week as well. The pond scum maintenance technician is getting old and weary.

But the Almighty Falls is done. The rest is details.

Frogs have already moved in and the pond scum has started to grow. I am sure the salamanders and crawdads are quite happy their home is finally back in order.

It is done and I am not injured or incapacitated. Thank God Almighty!

Let's hope the pond scum maintenance technician is just as lucky over the years climbing up and down this thing keeping it free of debris.

Tomorrow there will be another Almighty flush of the pond.

The planting around the falls inside the bowl of the old walls will be done. Two baby Darmera peltata that so kindly self sowed at the Twin Falls Pond will be moving. The pond itself will get some plants. I have three other ponds to weed from.

It will be a start. I expect it to take until the second spring for the greenery around the Almighty Falls to really soften up this monumental pile of rocks.

Almost

The left side of the falls is done and I managed to do it mostly by stacking and with very little glue.

This is what it looked like at the end of Monday.

I was so so close to being building done and ran out of time and interest. There is that little bit left on the far side in the back corner. I did manage to move a pile of rocks below the big boulder to finish it off. The end is near.

A left over pile of river rock was placed at the top of one of my spring catchment systems. That channel drains into the stream. It has a substantial flow. If all goes well the Almighty Falls will operate at constant overflow level. That will make my life so much easier.

The rock man is back. It was time to move some big boulders.

He can only reach so far over the wall. I said put them here.

I wanted a viewing bench. It is almost time to sit.

I asked the rock man how many loads of rock he brought. Ten and a quarter or about forty five tons, he said. Oh God. Add in the excavation and the building of the substructure beneath the rubber liner and I moved near eighty tons of rock.

I can't believe I did it. I most certainly could not have without all the rock fetchers helping.

Time and gravity is now in charge. I sure hope it outlasts me cause I sure don't want to put it back together if it all falls down.

Bloom Day In The Tall Flower Meadow

You deserve a break from the Almighty Falls. We all do. It's Bloom Day in the Tall Flower Meadow, something I wait all year long for.

From August to the first killing frosts, generally in late October, it is the time of the Tall Flower Meadow.

The meadow is host to an abundance of bloom.

There is plenty of Boneset

The White Wood Aster, Eurybia divaricata, plays in the lowest plane.

The regal Joe Pye is one of the main players in the Tall Flower Meadow.

Rattlesnake Master lingers well after the actual bloom time has passed.

Plenty Goldenrod. It is just getting started. This is one of four species that make the meadow home. The most aggressive one needs to be on my hit list.

The paths are getting flopped on. I have not spent much time working in the garden in the last two months. It didn't need me so I just looked.

Not so plenty Black Eyed Susan this year. They are having an off year for some reason. In the wild cultivated gardens that still means plenty.

One fuzzy caterpillar on the Nodding Onion.

This is the native Spikenard, Aralia racemosa.

This is Aralia cordata 'Sun King'.

There are Purple Coneflowers about.

Mixing with the Indian Grass, Sorghastrum nutans. 

The biennial Angelica gigas was introduced into the meadow. Now it needs to self sow.

The color is building on the way to the asters.

That's my Bloom Day in the Tall Flower Meadow. Be sure to visit Miss Carol at headquarters for her August Dreams show.

Almighty Goo

Half of the hard part is essentially done. A little more rubber liner went bye bye. Rocks got stuck to the liner and my fingers look like I dipped them in a bucket of black tar.

This is what it looked like yesterday.

I do need to go back and cut off the excess waterfall foam. I ran out of time and it needs to cure for a bit anyway. Note the nice new flow over the first drop of the falls. I glued a single flat piece of rock in there.

Cutting the liner off the big boulder on the right opened up the first possible escape route for water. There is no direct flow over that way now, but things can change. The plan is to lay a bead of foam under the liner, add a few more small rocks under the boulder and foam that closed too. I want water tight. That whole edge needs some more detail work.

It looks so small in pictures, but this section is near eighty feet of stream bed.

This will be the biggest planting area of the pond inside the bowl formed by the old walls. My remaining collection of baby rocks need to find a new home. This side is basically a mud flow on top of a solid slab of rock

The planting area on the opposite side is about half the size. It is pretty much a solid slab of rock period. What does one grow on a solid slab of rock? Green fuzz is nice.

There is one more section of the hard part. No sense in cleaning the dried crusty black goo off my fingers just yet.

One small section by the wall on the left needs covering. That may be where my baby rocks go. I do have a quarter load of new rock coming. There are bits of exposed liner here and there and I hope to build a dam of sorts to hold back the mud flow in places.

Have you missed me Button?

My garden is beginning to reach a stage of neglect. I don't think it cares. The one next door even more so. Someone's knees are putting a major crimp in achieving the proper amount of quality garden time. That leaves me to make up for it.

The good thing is all I have to do is mow the paths and all will be well. Mowed paths make the weeds magically disappear in a wild cultivated garden.

Not Yet

No it is not done yet. It won't be officially done until there are happy fishes swimming in the pond. That could be a couple more weeks.

It is ever so close. The vast majority of the rubber liner has disappeared.

Except for the hardest part.

This part is going to take some glue. Fortunately, waterfall foam is quite sticky and makes a good kind mortar of sorts.

A big chunk of the rubber liner covering the big boulder on the lower right will get cut away after I do a bit of addition and sticky work on the existing rock edge. The splash that will escape there should drip right back on to the rubber liner below.

There is a wee bit of rubber liner on the far side below the falls that needs to be covered. No biggie. I just need more rocks. I used up the full load that was delivered yesterday.

The lower half is done. I will check the whole thing for minor liner exposure with a bucket of small fill rocks.

One day it looks like a hideous pile of rocks and the next it doesn't seem quite so bad. It is what it is. You can get used to most anything.

What it is right now is filthy and soon to get filthier when all the dirt on the new load of rock washes into the stream. It is going to need another Almighty Flush or two. Then I can add pond plants and fishes. When I feel good that the bait fish are happy, pretty butterfly koi can join them.

That is when it will be officially done. Planting around it inside the bowl is a completely separate project as far as I am concerned.