The Fishpond build after one week...

One week ago today we started work on the fishpond waterfall. I never dreamed it would become the production it now is. I’ve noticed that undertakings like this one seem to take on a life of their own as they proceed. I sit there with beer in hand as my guys busily go about their tasks and new “must haves” just seem to pop into my spinning mind. It goes like this…

“Hey Eddie, how about…”

As soon as I say the “Hey Eddie..” part, he literally drops whatever he’s doing and rushes over to see what the next ridiculous request is going to be from me. I’ve learned to make sure he isn’t doing something critical because he really will just stop doing it and practically sprint right over.

It occurred to me yesterday that I really need to hover when it comes to mortaring the final stones into place. I say this because after thinking they would naturally understand what constitutes aesthetic beauty I came to a rude awakening when I realized they don’t have a clue. To the brick and tile man a beautiful job involves level and straight, which is the antithesis of what this job needs, that being a complete random placement of the rocks just as things usually are in nature.

From the beginning I tried to impart that I wanted as much randomness as possible. “Eddie, make it look NATURAL! NO straight lines and no two adjacent rocks the same size and shape!”

The problem is that the arbitrary laying of rock and stone in a tall wall of heavy irregularly shaped stones will likely end in the collapse of that wall. To drive home that point an exceptionally heavy stone dropped from its mortared position high on the wall smashing one of the tiles below. I had to send one of the boys out to pick up another couple of replacement tiles.

So, all of the stonework is done — I think. I must confess, it really is hard to know when to stop. I finally had to just say, ‘Okay, that’s enough. No more stones!’ Of course within seconds I’d see another spot that needed a stone. “Hey Eddie…. How about a stone right there…?” Darkness finally ended”the madness,” or I might still be out there right now finding more places to mortar in more stones.

Eddie came up with what I hope is a brilliant top basin design; we won’t know until we get the chance to turn the water on. He fashioned the basin shelf completely out of concrete and rebar to include using a form to make the lip behind which the water will collect before spilling out and over it to the surface of the pond about five feet below.

Edgar showed up late in the afternoon and I set him to work drilling the holes into the drip pipe. I urged him to do this quickly as we couldn’t finish the stone work at the top of the wall until he did. By the time he completed that task and we had the final stone wired, braced and mortared into place it was too dark to take any photos. So the pics here do not show the actual state of the project.

We have been using stones and rocks from the nearby Abakan River bed, which is only a few hundred meters from here. But when it came time to finish the final stone work, none of the river stones we had left on hand would suffice; at least not as far as I was concerned. I wanted a couple of long flat ones but all the stones from the river tend to be round, smooth and bulbous. Something compelled me to take a walk around the yard; after one lap it came to me that we should just borrow the stones we needed from the rock gardens. Within moments I had THE two perfect stones in both size, shape and as a bonus, they have an interesting dark green color. Yes! I love it when a plan comes together.

Tomorrow is a “no power in the morning” day. Whenever the grid requires any work at all, the power must go off. They still haven’t learned how to work on the lines with power running through them as is done back home. I’m not complaining too much though, since we’ve come a long way since I got here in ’02. Back then, it wasn’t unusual to experience brown outs that lasted 8, 9, even 12 hours. These days we lose it for only 3 or 4 hours at a time only two or three times a month. I’m actually staying up late tonight (it’s now 4:27 AM) with the idea that I will hopefully sleep through much of the outage. Sigh…

Edgar will stop by tomorrow (he says) and will finish up the last bit of plumbing. I’d like him to drill the final drip holes in the top basin as well, but that won’t be possible if power is out.

Another great idea occurred to me when I saw the good quality and beauty of the smaller river stones, the ones about the size of a fist and smaller. Once they assured me that the supply of these stones is inexhaustible that’s when I decided to scrape up the top three or four inches of soil from the birdcage to the fishpond and around the path to the other side of the mango tree, and then replace the removed soil with a layer of small Abakan stones. That will help with rain water drainage, and landscaping wise, it will tie the pond to the house. It’s going to look great when it’s all done.

So much more to do, but loving every minute of it…

Watching Bulbuls in my yard

Let’s take a brief break from covering the latest on the fishpond and waterfall build. I will say though that it’s progressing very nicely indeed. Tomorrow we should be installing the top platform on the waterfall wall of stones. I’ll get fully back on that subject tomorrow, but for today, let’s talk about birds .

I’ve always been a bird watcher. I was lucky to have spent my high school years n Michigan, a veritable wild bird lover’s paradise. A short 20 minute walk around the yard or down the street and someone paying even minimal attention can easily spot a dozen different species. I miss that.

I’ve lived in this town now for over eight years and in all that time in two different residences I think I’ve only spotted maybe less than a half dozen different types of wild birds, if that, either perched or in flight. Of course I don’t include in that count escaped chickens or pet pigeons out for their exercise flying.

Of that limited few, my favorite bird to observe has got to be the super flying swallows that swoop and jig and soar after flying insects. These indefatigable little fliers begin their daily swooping pursuits as the heat of the day subsides along with the setting sun. That’s about the same time that the bugs come out as well, so put two and two together…

It’s thrilling to sit on the bench up against the house situated at midyard and just lean back to watch the air show directly above. At any moment during their early evening feeding frenzies a half dozen or more airborne birds can be seen flashing back and forth overhead. Suddenly, they zoom over, appearing from over the roof of our house directly above me, or from across the yard coming directly at me from over the neighbor’s roof.

In midflight at full speed these swallows have the remarkable ability to markedly change direction, presumably when going after a bug snack. I keep waiting for two swallows collide head on. How that doesn’t happen is beyond me. I’ve seen thousands of near misses where I was sure they would crash into each other, but no, each knows to slightly alter direction and they’ll safely zip by each other with plenty of room to spare.

At the moment I am deprived of my evening swallow flights. They are nowhere to be seen this time of year. I imagine that’s because they are migratory. I wonder where they are this time of year. I also wonder where they dwell. From my knowledge of swallows, they usually make mud nests on the side of cliffs or under the eaves of tall brick or stone buildings. I would love to know where these particular ones hang their little birdie hats. In all this time I can remember seeing only one swallow take a perch break from their hunting activity. I was surprised to see it totally not flying sitting on the neighbor’s TV antenna. At first I didn't even identify it as a swallow, since I had never seen one of these particular ones at rest before.

xxx

Part of the reason I think they do not come to a rest much, especially around my little bungalow, is due to the presence of the birds that I’ve posted in photos with this narrative. I finally own a camera that can take pictures of them from far enough away that is still viewable after it’s enlarged. I’ve been aware of this bird for years, since a nesting couple is always in one of my trees or in the next door neighbor’s avocado tree. It wasn’t until this evening though, when I finally had some decent photos of the pair, that I finally identified them. From the photos I’ve found online in pbase under “Wild Birds of the Philippines,” this species is called the yellow vented bulbul.

I love the name of this bird for two reasons: First, it’s named for the plumage on the underside of its butt end, in other words it’s “vent.” Talk about creative naming! If you ever wanted to point to an example of a euphemism this would be it. On the other hand, "bulbul" in the Philippines means pubic hair; so much for being euphemistic! Divine and two of her teenage girls were in the room when I discovered the name of the species and when they read what the bird is called on the website they were quite amused. I guess if we wanted to we could actually call it the yellow-butted pubic hair bird.

Evidently, bulbuls, or at least our bulbuls, are very territorial, and aggressively so. During the times when there is no nesting pair of them around, that is the only time we see other birds dare to land for longer than a few seconds in the yard. There are a significant number of Eurasian sparrows in the neighborhood; at times I’ve counted more than 25 at a time alighting on our fences and in the grass, but as soon as our bulbuls take notice of them in they swoop and no more sparrows.

This hostility towards other birds only seems to take place when they have broods nesting. For instance, I took these pictures of these particular bulbuls today and they hardly paid any attention at all to some nearby sparrows that happened to be feeding on some moldy bread in the compost pit less than ten yards away.

Not yet knowing what kind of species it is, I pointed out our pair of bulbuls to Edgar today, asking him if he knew what they are called. He said a lot of the local Pampangans, like him, call it after the ugly sound it makes—the Ta-rhat. Happily, it doesn’t make its sound very often, because when it does, it’s very loud and annoying.

Continuing on about his personal knowledge from encounters with the bird, Edgar said when he was a boy he and his buddies would snare them for roasting. I shouldn’t have but I jumped down his throat a bit for that, “Why would you eat such a little bird? Surely, there is not much meat to be had from it. Geez Edgar, no wonder I never see any birds around here except sparrows! You guys EAT everything that walks, swims and FLIES!” I said that last part laughing.

Edgar is such a sweet guy; chagrined, he admitted that it was a stupid thing to do, that he wished he’d never done it. You just cannot get miffed at a guy like that. The man is too nice for his own good, and I always tell him so.

One more thing though, Edgar said that the bird has a fiercely strong bite. Looking at the photos I took of my bulbuls, its easy to see how robust their beaks are, which totally backs up Edgar’s claim that they can really bite hard. Its probably also why all the other birds immediately scram when a bulbul flies in their direction.

It feels great finally knowing what these birds are called. And being the guy that I am, I LOVE saying its name--BULBUL…!

Slow Steady Progress on Days Four & Five

Days four and five have brought slow but steady progress. When dealing with heavy stones piled one on another, all held in place with only a relatively few dabs of cement, its best not to get in a rush.

Even so, the primary wall of the waterfall is up and in place, as well as all the basic plumbing for the eventual waterworks. Speaking of which, on the fly we came up with a markedly different idea on how to manage the flow of water from where the pump pushes it to the top of the wall where gravity then takes it on back down to the basin.

Edgar has the most experience on the subject so he is in charge of making the water drip and splash the way we want it to; and so when he asked me what my thoughts are on how I’d like to see the water make its merry way from top to bottom I gave him my wish list:

“Okay Edgar, you asked for it. If possible, I’d like to see the water come down the rocks by three distinct methods—first, a nice slow drip all the way across the wall; and then I’d like to see a full on waterfall from the very top splashing all the way unobstructed to the surface of the pond; and finally, I’d like to see a series of catch pools, maybe three or four in all, staggered from top to bottom, each emptying into the one below until the final pool empties back into the pond. What do you think? Is it possible?”

He never answered me, already completely distracted by the possible solutions racing around the creativity racetrack in his head. By the end of the day he had it, and working with Eddie, the two of them had the primary components in place.

Each style of falling water would have its own water source. That means the main up pipe had to be split into five separate ones. One is an overflow, to allow for excess water pressure, if there is any, to bleed it back into the pond. Another pipe empties to the back of the falls when drainage is desired. And finally, the last three are each routed separately to the top of the falls; one each for the three distinct flows of water down the rock face.

When viewing all the convoluted piping and valves, none of which has actually been tested yet, it all seems very Rube Goldberg to me. And at this point we still are not sure how the water will actually flow. I imagine we will tweak it as we go. We’ll put the pieces together, turn on the water and adjust as necessary.

The drip pipe solution is probably the easiest one to make work. They simply placed the pipe horizontally along the top where drip holes will be strategically drilled along the length of the pipe.

The top primary falls will be the last thing we work on and will likely require the most adjustments. The top basin will have to be perfectly leveled so that the water empties evenly from side to side.

The catch pool pipe is probably the easiest to put in place since all it must do is to empty into the top catch pool. The concern then will be properly attaching each successive catch pool so that they correctly empty into the one below.

The staggered catch pool idea was updated by me when a flash of inspiration struck me while viewing the rock wall from within the porch. I realized that the view of the wall was not quite correct since only about 70% of it could be seen from there. The answer was obvious: extend the wall to the viewer’s right by adding an angle of stones. To get the water to it the obvious answer is to let the water flow into the final catch pool installed on the face of the new wall. Problem solved? We’ll see. At this time it’s still all hypothetical.

Power to the pump is now complete including all the camouflaging. One of my concerns had been how to hide the pump’s power cord. It runs necessarily from the pump and then up and over the side of the basin to where it plugs into a power receptacle installed on the mango tree by Edgar. I made it plain that did NOT want to see that cord. The next morning I took my coffee outside to where the boys had already been at work for over an hour. I was delighted to see that the black cord was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a very convincing tree root extending from the tree and right into and along the pond wall down to the pump. Mission accomplished—the power cord is now encased inside that “root” of cement.

Another unique feature of the rock wall is the pair of posts bookending the wall like structure. These posts are critical supports without which the heavy stack of rocks they support would surely eventually tip over. These posts, now decorated to resemble two concrete bamboo logs contain two thick steel rebars. The rebar goes both deep straight down into the soil as well as at a right angle into the mound of earth behind them. Additionally, horizontal sections of additional rebar runs from post to post every two feet or so. Now that the cement has set up, that wall is not going anywhere. It will be right where it is until someone purposely demolishes it.

Today, day six, we should start the construction of the three waterfall systems, as well as work on the completion of the sides of the stone wall by adding additional large boulders to try to create an illusion of thickness, to give the flat stack of stones more of a three-dimensional effect.

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.

Day Two of the Fishpond Build.

The boys made pretty good progress on day two of the build. We finished the primary pool structure, got much of the tile laid, and put in place the pump for the waterfall including most of the basic plumbing.

As usual for this time of year, the late afternoon sky turned dark with the threat of an oncoming storm. Hard rain not being a good thing for wet cement, the approach of a rainy season soaker sent us scrambling to cover the freshly mortared tub of stones with a tarp, something we didn’t have on hand. Divine sent her brother out on his trike to fetch us one from any store in which he might be able to find one.

Luckily, the storm didn't happen; it turned out to be what I call an "El Nino teaser"—lots of promising dark sky and angry clouds but then only a sprinkle of rain, if that. This time however, I was quite happy to receive only a few sprinkles.

Divine went to a place that specializes in such things and found the Kenji water pump. They tried it out at the store and the volume of water it can move is quite impressive she says, plus it’s supposed to be about the highest quality around here. Of course, around here, that’s not saying much.

Seeing where the pump was to end up at the bottom of the pool prominently centered under the eventual waterfall feature I asked Eddie if we couldn’t design a shelf of stone to jut out directly above it to camouflage it. “No problem,” Mister Can Do answered like he always does. We’ll probably put that in tomorrow.

I urged Eddie and my electrician, Edgar, to think always of how to camouflage all of the manmade parts of the pond and waterfall as much as possible. One problem will be hiding the power cord coming up out of the pool from the pump. Eddie offered the solution to that one. He says we’ll route the cord up and out the side of the pool running it between the stones and then place cement features immediately over the run to make it look as natural as possible. I’m not quite sure what he’s talking about so we’ll see how it works out.

Tomorrow we’ll probably work on finishing the rest of the bottom tiles and start building the structure up that will support the waterfall. I’d like to see it tall enough so that it can easily be viewed from within the porch.

The shape of the pond didn’t turn out exactly as I pictured in my mind but I’m still mostly happy with it. I wanted more of an exaggerated guitar shape, but once the rocks were in place that figure eight aspect was mostly muted out so that it looks more like a rock lined bathtub now. I think once it’s complete though and all the plants are in place, it will look great. In the meantime we are really having a lot of fun making it happen. I guess it’s true what they say about “the journey” and all that philosophical touchy feely stuff…