LOL!! Poor Mary! Hey, any way we can get them. I don't think anyone is complaining. :D Brenda

Gee, KY, there's nothing wrong with 'playing' in your pond! We call it 'playing IN' or 'playing WITH', depending on whether we actually end up with our feet in the water. I don't go waist deep that often, but in this picture, I had to position a few waterlily pots on top of the retro bd's pipe to stop it from floating up. Now! Tammy! Girl. You had to ask. You took the lid off my mouth... How about the short version answers to your questions? Then you can ask if you want more info. It's quite dangerous to ask me "all the details" - you might just get ALL the details... - The set-up: a deep area in the middle, and three 'bays', each with a few different levels for lily pots etc, going down to the deep part. About 3500 gallons, and the new settling chamber is probably an extra 500 gallons. I think. External pump, a PerformancePro Cascade. I think. - Bottom drain: not originally, so it has a retro-fit BD. If underground layers of granite are not a problem where you live, you should definitely do a bottom drain beforehand. The retro-fit is working OK, but it has its own set of issues. - So far we haven't invested in a UV filter, because we don't (didn't?) have an efficient way to filter the dead algae cells out. - We didn't have much of a green water problem the first few years. When it got a bit murky the third year, we put in a pressure filter, and that made the water crystal clear. But then the goldfish had a few hundred babies, which overwhelmed the filter system. That's why we dug the large settling chamber this year. We also gave dozens of goldfishies away and bought some golden orfes. - The filters: the waterfall has a 'bio-filter' tub behind it that's filled with filter material - a coarse circle, and on top of that laundry bags with nylon scrubbies. The water hyacinths' roots also do their best. We put the pressure filter before the bio-filter, between the pump and the waterfall. Then there is the settling chamber between the pond and the pump. It's an up-flow double-chamber sc, and the water has to rise through three layers of filter material, twice. Then it goes to the pump. We're putting in a small skimmer this week as well. - So the way the water goes around is: from the pond, through the retro-fit bd to the sc, up through the filter material in the first part, overflow to the second part, down, up through more filter material, then to the pump, split, one pipe to the waterfall, and the other pipe through the pressure filter and then to the waterfall, splash, back into the pond. The skimmer pump will feed two small spitters and two (or four) underwater outlets, to improve circulation in the three bays. - The new sc has a bottom drain so we can easily remove the gook that it removes from the pond, but its outlet is not in its final form yet (in other words, it isn't working as good as we hoped...). I also have to redesign the filter screens - I, eh, made it look so nice with the stones around the edge so it doesn't look so rectangular, but now, eh, I can't get the screens out anymore... DH won't like it when I tell him when he gets back... It's all one big science experiment! :) Mary

My goal over the coming years is to remove all lawn and convert it to walking gardens. I am still in my 40's but would like to build walking gardens to keep me gardening till the day I step out of this world. SO I want raised beds, that a 90 year old lady could work in easily. I want path ways that I can roll my DH around in if he in 30 years need wheels to get around on pathways. I want to create a place so that the chickens and goats can have room, but not mess up or destroy my gardens, but keeping them intermixed yet separate. Separate walkways that allow the animals around the yard yet not in the gardens,too. Like a bridge over one garden, caged in so the goats cant jump out onto my flowers or fruit trees. I have been planning this and working on it for over 5 years...What I have now is 3 pens for the animals and gardens surrounding them. Now I have another acre to incorporate more walkways for the animals to intermix with some more gardens. I would like to build a pond in the middle and a walkway of white birches leaning into each other on either side of the walk way for about 50 feet. I have a grape and honey suckle arbor that has turned into a 10 foot by 10 foot sq.structure of lattice and seating. It stands about 7 feet tall. I hope to build a stone wall around it and create like a birm upagainst the wall so as to create a sunken room. I also want to create a large raspberry bed, move my asparagus beds to more sun from where they are now, create new kitchen garden and more perennial and annual beds. I would like a green house built that can not be used by my husbands business (lanscaping and greenhouse/nursery business) which is located right in the back yard of my home. I want my own tools which are not to be shared by any of his employees, so I want my own tool shed as well. It seems that if I go to borrow fromthe business that I tend to offend someone who has laid claim to it that works for us. The business has many greenhouses for growing, but it seems that if I try to find space that it gets taken or sold because it looked too good (my plants). And like the shoemaker, hubby has no time to build or help me out with the gardening, so its all for me to do. If I want to have sometime done, the best advise someone gave me was to start the project and be earnest and then create a feeble wreck that would require rescuing by ones husband who can not bear to have a project look so poorly on his property. If you dont start it, well, it will never get done. While I dont actually agree with the feeble wreack philosophy, it does give me a chuckle when I am struggling to complete a project which I am too stubborn to ask for help and too determined to complete myself with pride. This year I purchased a mitor box, a screw gun, and a sander. I keep them under lock and key fromt he business, except that I foolishly lent out my sander and now it has dissappeared into the hands of the business and somewhere amoung the many seasonal landscapers, gardeners, growers, mechanics, and relatives ( many relatives!) that I live among. While I shouldnt complain because I get all my mulch, loam, compost, seeds, etc from our family business to accomidate what ever I want to do, the problem is that my husbands business is like an extention of the family and many feel comfortable to act or are my immediate family. When my goats ate a fruit tree striped it of the bark, I started digging the girdled tree out of the ground, I dug and hand dug a trench all around so that all I needed was to merely lift it out. I was called away for the day to do a project with my kids...when I came back the employees had removed the fruit tree and replaced it with a flowering crab. Now I love flowering crabs, they are truely beautiful...everyone should have at least 2 crabs in their yard---BUT I DIDNT WANT A FLOWERING CRAB....I wanted another edible fruit tree to make pies with! SO when I get old I have pies to make from my trees. Now, the employees are very proud of themselves and I dont have the nerve to tell that I dont like it...instead, its still there and I was trying to think of how I could let the goats chew and girdle that tree as well....problem being...I dont have the heart to hurt a beautiful tree just to replace it with a fruit tree. Most of my gardens are operated this way, so I have a repretation for being not pleasant to employees. There are some who are very sensitive and kind and understand I have a need to grow and create by myself and dont interfer...and then there are those who are perhaps new and dont understand thatgardening is a great passion and when bored mess around in my gardens!!!! Rumors are not to mess in Sue's garden. How is that for ingrateful and being a brat?! SO this year I plan on putting up a physical fence which would put up a boundry to where the private part of the home is and where the business and public area is to be. Hubby has lived this way for over 25 years, while we have only been married for only 6 of those years, I need a good wall a boundry for my gardens to be separate from the business. I even have customers who offer my husband for plants growing in my gardens, the worse part is that he actually tells them yes and then asks me! It is a great compliment and my ego is well stroked when someone wants one of my vines or perennials or what ever. But no more MRS NIce Guy, unless I am dividing our cleaning out my garden...I am putting my foot down to the business and not allowing anymore pilforaging or what ever you call it. I want a garden to get old with and one that is of my design, for Iam a gardener, a designer and an artist with a great need to express myself. Other than that I will be guarding my gardens all year. I got me 2 geese that have been very territorial so now Iam smiling a bit more. ANd the animals are so cute and sweet, well that only encourages people to come over to my private space and visit the animals...which I dont mind as long as they dont let the animals out of their pens or feed them junk food....which very rarely if ever happens... This winter I plan on training my 3 goats to pull carts. I have their harnesses all ready to go and a new cart built. I even purchased a tiller for the goats to pull in the Spring/summer. NOw, if I get my own greenhouse...I amgonna put locks on it! I grow everything organicly and that attracts strong interest,too. The worse part of all is that my ego gets such a great compliment when flowers are taken for other uses from me that it isnt until later that I realize my plans all fell apart and my gardens arent going as I had hoped and so long to plan. THe very worse that any employee could do is to put chemicals such as slug bait into my garden....this is totally unacceptable. Fortunately this only happened once and it was the first year I was here. Bad bad stuff, right on my herb plants no less. Not only is it toxic but it looks like something the cat heaved up. All gardening methods are organic around me and my family and animals. Something that DH wasnt accustomed to when we first were married. He use to apply roundup when I wasnt around figuring I would never know the difference...Well I have anose like a fox and saw out of the cornor of my eye what was happening...again many years ago and it has never happened again. Same with velpar, chemicals in aresal cans for insects in the greenhouses (YUCK) The greenhouses have all been orgainic now for over 5 years as well as our gardens and property...not even preemergence that are chemicals....NO CHEMICALS. or else the wicked witch of Tremont descends on darling hubby and his business. ANd LIke I said, this hasnt happened now for over 5 years. Other than that I am still fighting for organic methods and practises within the companies practises and definietely in my own gardens and property. Hope everyone is having a safe winter... PS has anyone ever actually seen a shrub called Arnolds Promise? I have been wanting it for many years and cant seem to locate one. It is a witch hazel...( something about the witch of tremont reminded me heheheheh)But seriously, I would appreciate having this shrub. I also need to start seeds, but am planning a family trip to Arizona end of Feb and first of March, so that is on hold till I get back. Eat your heart out, we are going to Arizona...cant wait! except that I feel displaced not starting any seeds by now. :) THanks for the rant time Cheers- Gardengardengardengarden

Thanks, everyone! The soil here is way different than what I'm used to. I've always had a clay soil (or fill dirt in some cases). Here I have very sandy soil. There was already a garden spot (not in use when I purchased the place), so, I just used that spot. I tilled in a bunch of leaves this weekend. I've been told that the previous owner did the same thing. By next year, I'll have a compost pile set up. :-) I feel like I got pretty lucky with my new place. I had been looking for a long while, and this one popped up. There was another offer on it (in less than a week on the market), but, that fell through and I jumped on it. Now I just have to sell the old place. The Brain Strains had quite a bit of variety in shape, but, I think that pic represents the majority. I got the seeds from Romy6. He warned me of the pod variations up front. I just wanted the wrinkly / bumpy texture, I'm happy with them. :-)