Ding Dong the pond is GONE!!!

When we bought our house in September 2006, this beautlful koi pond was the deal sealer. When we told people about the house, we always told them about the pond. It really was beautiful and made our yard probably the nicest looking in the neighborhood.

The the fall came. As you can see, the pond is build around 3 beautiful Bradford Pear trees- which lose their leaves in the fall. Skimming the pond and unclogging the pump became a daily job. Everytime I had to stick my hand in the cold water, I hated the pond even more. We were working hard to keep the pond maintained, but the final straw came shortly. My hubby was cleaning the leaves from the pump area, slinging leaves out. Later that afternoon he realized that his wedding ring was gone. After hours of draining the pond and digging through sludge, we found the ring- laying in a flower bed near the pond. But that was it, it was over. We unplugged the pump for good. We drained the pond a couple of times before we finally had the time to take out all of the rocks (probably 3 truckloads), and dig up the rubber liner. I don't have any pictures of this stage, but gross is all I can (lots of mud and muck- but hey, I'm an aggie, I've spent my time digging around in far worse).

Many hours of shoveling and moving dirt around led to this...


With the help of some warm winter days in Carolina (68 in Janaury???), we were finally able to finish leveling. Now we have a large flowerbed, mulched and ready to go for spring planting.