Position Filled!

A few posts back, I titled the page; Help Wanted: Rain. The position, I mean pond has been filled! For those of you tracking Florida weather, the area around our compound received between 7 and 10 inches of rain yesterday. Yes, that's in a 24 hour time period. As you'll see by the last photo, we're about 3/4 full! It's really amazing.


For those negative Nancies and Neds, who thought our pond was too big, and would never fill, eat your words. One itty bitty tropical wave took care of that problem.

The garden looks good, wet, but good. Corn, beans, squash, lettuce and cucumbers are already up. If we get some sunshine back, things will really get moving.


We expect to do some normal maintenance this weekend, nothing serious planned. We need to get home in time to watch the Gators take on Alabama.

Do It Big and Do It Right, or Don't Do It At All!

We had another long weekend. We accomplished more than anticipated, due to a shady day on Saturday. The heat index was only in the 90's and not over 100. It really makes a difference. Here's a quick review;



Well, we did get some rain, and the pond is starting to fill. We are expecting rain most of Tues/Wed and Thurs of this week. Things are looking up regarding water retention.




We finished the garden. It's completely planted, and the chicken wire has been placed along the outside. The Moose dug a trench, and then we buried a foot of the chicken wire in the ground before attaching it to the side of the existing wire fencing. We have a plethora of wild animals, that dig around the yard and the chicken wire will be an extra defense against the rabbits and wild pigs. We watered the garden from the pond, and it didn't look like we took a drop from it. Awesome!



It looked a little like Survivor Island for a bit on Sunday. We were overrun by huge fire ant hills. I don't care what the ads say, those expensive sprinkle on solutions do not work. They just relocate a few feet over. The only way to truly get rid of them is to burn them out.


The chicken coop is being put on hold until later in the fall. We need a physical break, so we're on to just cleaning up the place; mowing the yard, and weeding the garden. That's really enough work in normal circumstances, but as with all things, we either do it big and do it right, or we don't do it at all.

Sheer Will

Another blistering hot day on Saturday. We began at 7am, and didn't leave the compound until 7:30pm. It was a long scorching day. We took a 15 minute break for lunch. But, the stone that needed to be hauled and placed around the pond to hold the liner in place, is done. We probably shoveled and moved over 50 wheel barrels full. The garden fence, a 45' x 24' area has 14 posts, a gate and 6' wire fencing, is done!!!! The Moose, dug each post hole with a post hole digger by hand. And it was his sheer will, especially towards the end, that got these projects done.

Now, we have to finish tilling, add some compost, and start marking rows for plants. I have some tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, celery and brussel sprouts started. I hope to have them planted next weekend, along with some others. We're in the middle of planting for the cool season.

Help Wanted: Rain

Wouldn't it just figure, now that we have the pond actually ready for rain, we haven't seen a drop all week. When we were trying to get the pond and the area around it cleaned up, over the past couple of weeks, it rained everyday, making the work even harder. It's Florida for cripes sake! There's no rain in the horizon until possibly next week Tuesday.

The positive to come from this, is we'll be high and dry while we sweat away again this weekend, placing stone around the outside of the pond to hold down the liner, and hopefully, finally, get to digging some post holes for the garden fence.

The Liner is In!

Our rain water pond is in! We had help from my Mom and Dad this past Saturday, which made the final placement of the underlay and liner go much quicker than anticipated. We even had time to finish the trench along all 4 sides.

The liner weighed a whopping 960lbs. Even though it was on a roll, it was not easy to move around. Now we're praying for rain.

He's No Whimpy Tin Man!

It was another one of those overly hot weekends. The heat index was over 105 degrees, which made for slow work. We returned to the compound on Saturday to find that the pond was full of ground water. That's a bad thing, our ground water has a high concentration of salt. We are in the process of having some sand brought in, to fill in the pond back above the ground water level, which should be a foot or so. The sand, rather than the dirt and roots we took out, will make it easier to work with the liner and underlay. We played around with a couple of pond ideas this weekend, and never got around to the garden fencing. As with most things, one step forward, two back.

The liner should get here on Wed. of this week. It weighs a whopping 960lbs. It's going to take some effort to get it moved and in place. We're calling in the troops to help this weekend.

Well, the Moose is stronger than he looks. While we were clearing some more trees and roots from around the pond area, he broke our axe! This was after he out used the chain saw. He's no whimpy tin man...

Digging, and Digging,...

Well, the pond has been dug! It's a whopping 45' x 35' x 5', and can hold nearly 60 thousand gallons of water. Yes, you read that right. We ordered the pond liner and underlay, and it should be delivered next week. This guarantees what project we'll be working on the following weekend.

We're hoping to get started on the fence posts for the garden this weekend. This has been a project put on hold for some time, due to the heat. We'll see what happens this weekend. There's always plenty to do. Have a safe and happy holiday weekend!