For years we have had a small pond next to our patio. It started out small, a plastic form, simple filter and pump and a handful of tiny fish. Each year as the fish grew, so did the pond, moving up to slightly larger plastic forms each year. The fish have overwintered just fine in my silly little pond, that is until this year.
While we were off galavanting in Florida the waterfall sprang a leak, slowly emptying the pond over several days. Because of the way the pond was built the pump couldn’t really empty it entirely, so the fish should have survived. Unfortunately, it seems, the low water level made them easy pickings for the resident racoons. I was sad, for sure, but because they just disappeared it was a little easier to take than to find them swimming belly up.
And to be totally pragmatic, in a way, it solved a problem. The fish, three koi and five comets, were getting so big that the pond really couldn’t sustain them. Last summer I worried constantly about the oxygen content and water quality. They were going to have to find new homes. Although I was thinking trade in at the local pet store, not sushi.
Caleb, son number three, worked for couple of summers for a landscape company that specialized in building ponds. This spring he decided to build a “real pond” for me, partly for mother’s day and partly to work off college debts.

The flagstone edging was the first to go. The water plants and the sole survior, one of the comets, were moved to one of the earlier pond liners to await their new home.

Boys and their toys. Kent (left) supervises as Caleb begins to dig out the new pond. The guys convinced me that the backhoe would make quick work of the digging. And since they were digging into ground that had for many years been the gravel driveway to the former garage, the rental seemed like a good idea. Once Caleb was done shaping the pond Kent used the machine to pull out over grown foundation plantings and to move pine trees from the meadow’s edge to the side of the busy road we live on. David used the lawn tractor and trailer to relocated the dirt.

First the underlayment goes in to protect the liner from punctures from stones in the ground. Caleb knows what the pond will look like, he has it all worked out in his head. He’s already planning the placement of stones and ledges for plants. All of my sons are creative and artistic, but Caleb has a real eye for form.

Three tons of fieldstone will line the pond. Caleb and David hand pick where each stone is placed. That sounds like a lot of stone, but it really wasn’t. More like about six wheelbarrels full. But, as Kent pointed out, that’s plenty if you’re the one lifting each one.

Meanwhile, Kent is off harvesting small boulders. These stones were likely piled here, on the edge of the field, after being plowed up during planting. Until the turn of the last century Applewood Farm was a real working farm with its own blacksmithing shed and cider press. Now the only thing we grow here is boys and quilts.