Phase 2 of Building The Deck was carried out over the weekend. This involved digging out all the holes for the deck's footings (which I did on Saturday while Steve was in Brisbane at a matinee of West Side Story) followed by digging out the fish pond. We carefully marked out the shape using pink twine (what else) before cracking through the hard clay. It was great to feel the warmth of the sun (at long last) but you can see by Stevie's shirt that it was hot, sweaty, dirty, dirty work.
Looking somewhat like an archaeological dig, we dug and we dug and we dug and we carted and carted and carted barrow loads of soil from the site where we dumped them in mounds over in our bush garden (see previous posting). Adding to the general discomfort (but hey who are we to whinge) were huge march flies the size of small mice that were intent on sucking at our perspiring sweat. Luckily they were easily dispatched. We were lucky that we had had some rain earlier in the week which had softened the clay-ey soil, otherwise it would have been like digging into concrete. As it was it as bloody hard going until we reached a softer, sandier horizon.
Ta daaa! Fish pond now completely dug out. It has a sloping 'floor' so that one end is shallower than the other deeper end (which is where I am). We will add a layer of concrete blocks around the edge before lining the whole thing with pond liner, thus increasing the deep end to about 90 cm which should be enough to grow some water lillies in. Next week is Phase 3: cementing in the footings. Stay tuned.
Phase 2 of Building The Deck was carried out over the weekend. This involved digging out all the holes for the deck's footings (which I did on Saturday while Steve was in Brisbane at a matinee of West Side Story) followed by digging out the fish pond. We carefully marked out the shape using pink twine (what else) before cracking through the hard clay. It was great to feel the warmth of the sun (at long last) but you can see by Stevie's shirt that it was hot, sweaty, dirty, dirty work.
Looking somewhat like an archaeological dig, we dug and we dug and we dug and we carted and carted and carted barrow loads of soil from the site where we dumped them in mounds over in our bush garden (see previous posting). Adding to the general discomfort (but hey who are we to whinge) were huge march flies the size of small mice that were intent on sucking at our perspiring sweat. Luckily they were easily dispatched. We were lucky that we had had some rain earlier in the week which had softened the clay-ey soil, otherwise it would have been like digging into concrete. As it was it as bloody hard going until we reached a softer, sandier horizon.
Ta daaa! Fish pond now completely dug out. It has a sloping 'floor' so that one end is shallower than the other deeper end (which is where I am). We will add a layer of concrete blocks around the edge before lining the whole thing with pond liner, thus increasing the deep end to about 90 cm which should be enough to grow some water lillies in. Next week is Phase 3: cementing in the footings. Stay tuned.
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