Hi everyone. Thanks SO much for all your nice comments :-) Im blushing here in Denmark. Jenny, the liner is premade with the tiny peebles glued on... what a job it would have been to glue them on :-D I thought it was such a good idea. But it only came in a very narrow measure, so Ive had leaks constantly since I put it in. Also after about a week it stained completely dark where the water runs, and it looked so yuck and dirty as the part above the waterstream stayed nice and fresh. So in the end I filled the stream up completely with little stones. And it actually got to look really nice. Then I placed some wooden edging behind the stream, cuz the sides of that little mountain were just too steep, as soil and peebles kept getting washed down with the rain. I still had the problem with the leaking stream though, and soil being washed down into the pond at the front of the mountain. And I didnt really build this to get more flowerbeds, as I have lots already... and I already thought my new pond was too small... giggle. So I eyed a nice size upper pond in this raised bed. So I took it all apart... not the pond, just the upper part :-D Im not sure how this works, but I guess I better start a new post right, so this doesnt get too heavy on pics? Take care, Hanne in Denmark

Chubbypoptart The hole originally measured about 16 feet wide and 24 feet long and about 3 feet deep. The legnth shrunk a bit with building the falls and depth is a little more now, I think about 40" since the water is above ground at the surface. I ordered a 30x40 foot firestone pond liner which was an over estimate. We could have got by with a 25x35 foot liner. I think the cost of the liner was close to $900. My guess is 5000 gallons. The pump is 7000 GPH pump, I went bigger since the hose to the fall is over 20 feet long I thought I might loose some pressure. The pump was about $275.00. Everything else I scrownged or had. I probably spent another $600 on plants. So total price I guess would be about $2000.00 with all the odds and ends. As far as getting it smooth it was easy. Our soil is a sandy loam with no rocks so we just used a flat head shovel to flatten the surfaces. Yes, all dug by hand by my dear husband and son in law. Sanctified, I used Glover Nursery in West Jordan and Earth Systems on 9th east and about 7300 south and a couple online stores. I could not get the liner locally since it was so large. The rocks were collected from Stansbury Island, Skull Valley, the Delle exit off I-80 and west of Utah Lake. I think they found the red ones west of Utah lake. Don't blame you for not doing a pond in WVC, I hear the ground is rocky and impossible to dig in.

Follow-Up: I used the milk and it told me nothing. Then I got a burst of energy and took the waterfall apart (this was heartbreaking because I'd spent hours last year bending in the most horrible positions gluing small rocks in strategic places so you couldn't see any part of the waterfall thing). Then, with the waterfall aside, I filled the pond up to see what would happen. Amazingly, it lost no water. So, even though I'd already determined that the waterfall was not leaking, something involved with the waterfall seems to make the water go out of the pond (grrrr!). So I just set things up again, getting my poor husband to lift hideously heavy rocks to hide the waterfall again, andn I left it overnight last night. This morning the water was at the same level as 12 hours ago. Whew. I still have no idea what was causing the water to go out of the pond or if it will happen again! But for now, the pond is a "go" and I'm going to put my fish in. Will post photos later! Thank you all for your help!

Chris: I am anxiously awaiting your pics too. If you store your photos in Photobucket just copy the HTML tag under your pic (third line) and paste it into your message. The picture won't appear until you hit preview message. Hope this helps. Jenny