Fishpond, and on the Third Day...

xxxxWork on the fishpond went on hold this morning until after we finished trimming a couple of very large overhanging mango branches. I had mentioned that they needed to come down to Eddie yesterday and he made that the day’s first priority.

Two of his sons then spent most of the rest of the day breaking down the huge pile of branches, stems and leaves into compost. Since moving here late in 07 I’ve prided myself on not throwing out even a sprig of biodegradable waste. Branches, leaves, dead pets, chicken bones, steak bones, fish bones, parings and peels, it all goes into the ground where it takes less than three months for all of it to become part of the soil. We are probably the only house in the subdivision that has completely non-smelly garbage cans. To preclude any possibility of malodor I even make my people wash food cans, jars and packaging before tossing it. It’s easy to do, so why doesn’t everyone?

After trimming most of the branches off the south side of the tree last month due to the profane complaints of the cantankerous old fellow next door, and now with the removal of most of the lower branches on the eastern side, there is now a whole lot more light streaming into the fishpond location. Before all the cutting and sawing that area was almost cave like, practically lightless.

Although I enjoyed the earlier shady, coolly restful aspect of the spot directly under the mango tree, I’m thinking the addition of more light will likely make the pond and its waterfall a far prettier spectacle. And hopefully, it will continue to be a soothingly peaceful place to sit and meditate despite the loss of much of the overhead leaf canopy.

The tile and mortar man was not quite able to finish laying the last of the aqua blue tiles on the floor of the pond. We were one tile short of being able to do it and it being Sunday there was no place open to go buy one; but I get ahead of myself...

After placing most of the whole tiles yesterday, the really hard part began today. That’s because the rest had to be exactly trimmed to fit around the various stones protruding into the base of the pond. He did this by trimming cardboard squares one at a time until it could be used as a template or pattern to mark the actual tile piece meant to go into that unique spot. It’s a good system but it takes a lot of painstaking effort to make sure each and every tile piece is perfect.

I’ve been doing a lot of cringing these last three days. Divine tried to make them be mindful of all the plants crowding into the workspace for all the good it did. My poor babies are taking a real beating. There are times that I have to just leave the area so that I don’t have to witness their mauling by my worker’s careless movements. After spending so many months pruning, watering, trimming, and feeding them, it’s tough to watch them get mangled — years of work undone in moments. Sigh.

Tomorrow we start work on the waterfall feature for sure. On a piece of paper with pencil and crayons I made a diagram of ideas for Eddie on which I depicted some of the elements I’d like to see in the finished product. I told him what I really want is plenty of action, both visually and acoustically. I want the water to splash and drip off of protruding rocks and rims; as well as to be caught in a series of catch pools from where even more water falling sounds will be made as the wet stuff cascades from pool to pool to pool to pond.

I have to admit, doing this project is a real thrill. Small things like this really make life adventurously fun and interesting, another reason to look forward to getting up in the morning.