You just can't rush these things . . .

This weekend, thanks to my husband, we finished a long-term project.

Several years ago, Dan bought a fountain pump and peripheral equipment for my birthday. However, my original plan for its placement required still more peripheral equipment – a longer cord. Six months passed before I obtained said cord.

Before . . .

Now the job had turned into a big, complicated electrical one. These types of jobs require lots of planning, perhaps an environmental study or permit.  Maybe it would require the blessing of a uniformed officer of the electrical code.

Six more months went by, with the equipment residing on the laundry room counter.

Then came a Eureka moment:  I should put a pond right outside my living room window in a bed still to be developed! This would be much closer to the house, ergo closer to the electrical outlet thereby simplifying the job.  I rushed out to buy the pond, lugged it home and set it in place.

Six months passed. The pond collected water from roof run-off and became home to some minnows, dead bugs, an occasional waterlogged toad and green pond sediment.

Look, I even used tools!

In early spring, something moved inside my soul. I knew it was time for the next step in this project. My husband finished moving rocks. I moved dirt and plants to surround the pond. Now, it was a flowerbed! A flowerbed with a pond! Maybe now . . .

No. Six more months elapsed. The plants grew, the minnows swam, but alas, the sound of tinkling water did not fill the air.

Sometime during this period, I saw a cool idea on Pam Penick's Digging. She had visited another gardener and seen her fountain, and then copied the idea for her own garden. These two gardeners had rigged a fountain to run water through a hose bib. I found a discarded hose bib and decided to follow in their footsteps (the sincerest form of flattery, right?).

Labor Day weekend arrived. While discussing what projects we could undertake, I suggested that perhaps my dear husband could get the fountain up and running. I pulled up Pam’s page to show him how her husband had managed this engineering feat.

My husband hemmed and hawed, then struck out for the hardware store. Like Pam and Cat, he bought metal plumbing pipe and elbow joints. He assembled the pieces of pipe and set the unit in a one-gallon plastic plant pot, then mixed some concrete and poured it in. The bottom of the pipe stuck out the side of the pot/concrete. When the concrete was dry, he cut off the pot, connected plastic tubing from the pump to the bottom of the pipe, and set all in the pond. He did a little hocus pocus electrical work, and then plugged in the whole apparatus. Water began splashing gaily into the pond! Hurrah!

This little fella was in the
pot I moved - the first new
resident of our revamped pond!

I placed a sad little water plant from the other pond beside the concrete block – I’m hoping the cooler water and shade will provide it a better home. Four big beautiful goldfish now populate this more upscale pond.  

Now we are eager for cooler weather so we can open the windows and hear the soothing sound of water splashing right outside.

. . . and after! The bed is home to Turk's cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii),
heart-leaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata) and a white potato vine (Solanum jasminoides).