Hi there Jane! I have newspaper under the new dirt, it creates a barrier for a while and also kills the grass so if you don't need to dig too deep it makes things easier! I also like how it eventually composts itself so i am adding to the earth at the same time! I used fabric weed barrier near the back of the falls because i have been fighting a thistle infestation for a few years now, my previous neighbour just let them grow and seed and they are so hard to get rid of!! Good luck with your pond! :) I hope you get some good rainfall soon! Violet

Hi buyorsell, My first sleep study 12 years ago was "normal"........but I had only slept a little over 1 hour, so how the heck could they know?? My internist a couple years ago really felt that alot of my fibromyalgia symptoms might be sleep apnea, so he sent me to a different sleep lab, and it show mild-mod apnea (30/hr), and I have been using CPAP since. It hasn't cured some of my symptoms, but I have more energy than I've had for 15 years. You don't necessarily need a doctor's order these days for a machine, and you can get a used one. Check out cpaptalk.com. Lots of great info on there. Is it possible you need to try a different sleep lab with a different doctor? How many hours did you sleep during your test? We fibromyalgia people also have another kind of sleep disorder, besides the apnea, and as soon as we start to go into deeper sleep, our brain wakes us up. So we hardly ever get deep sleep. I'm not sure of your age, but I have seen so many women develop fibro during perimenopause, so I'm sure its related to our hormones too. Everything went to heck at that time for me. Plus, I got a bad virus, which seemed to make everything alot worse. My father had sleep apnea too. I think there is a genetic component to it. After my sleep study, I refused to go back for the titration study. My sleep deprivation was causing alot of of panic attacks, and I just couldn't go through another night like that. I found a sleep doc who was kind enough to let me try a machine, without the titration study. Perhaps your doc would let you try it, even though your study didn't look bad enough? Your insurance might not cover it though. The newer machines are computers, and they can see and print out what you're doing all night.........number of apneas, hypopneas, leakage, etc. Here's another possibility for you.........you can get/rent/borrow a recording oximeter for a few nights and that will show how many times you desaturate during the night. That would be an excellent way to tell if perhaps your sleep study didn't show the problem. Our local DME company (durable medical equipment)Lincare actually let me borrow an oximeter for free, at the beginning of all this, and it showed alot of desaturation. Then I went on to get the sleep study. No offense to your doctor, but I think trying CPAP would be one of the best things you could try for your fibro. Nothing can be good if you're not getting restorative sleep.

Thank you all for your kind comments. We built the ponds over a weekend mid June digging the holes on Saturday and inserting the liners and smoothing out the dirt on Sunday. I actually waited a week and 2 days before adding any fish. We live on Long Island, no raccoon here but I saw an opossums twice in my yard about 5 years ago, but the most dangerous predator here are cats (one likes to drink every morning in a fountain we have). Thanks for reinforcing the "wait and see" strategy. I have about a third of the water coveren in lettuce now, will probably get some more next trip to the garden place. On a happy note when I checked the pond this morning the boys were schooled up at the far end looking for food on the surface. They seemed happy and healthy, and I did get to see Nemo and Goldie (the two Kois).

Hi putzer, I have a 300 gallon stocktank that I've sunk into the ground. It doesn't have shelves. I'm glad for that, since hopefully the coons will leave things alone....but they would be nice for the little guys who fall in. I wonder if pieces of styrofoam would work, until the plants get big enough for them to hold onto.......like little life preservers?