This Reminds Me

Archive for the ‘Pond’ Category

When we left “A Man and His Pond” near the end of Season 3, the deck was torn out.  The pond was still dry.  And there was unholy mess inside and outside of Casa Woodworth.

Today, the deck is rebuilt with much higher quality lumber.  Note the lovely copper post toppers.  It’s about 90% complete.  If we were independently wealthy, Keith would stay home and design/build “things.”  He can not only fix anything, but he can also design/build anything.  My job in all this remains the same:  I bring ice water.

As of Sunday – the pond has water. Note the small wooden bridge over the waterway from the bog.  The grass is brown because it’s February in Texas.  If anyone knows a rain dance – feel free to shake a leg, we could use some help.  Keith tells me the fence must be replaced soon, and of course, the sidewalk between the house and the garage is still torn out.  We have some very cool stepping stones piled in our bedroom, awaiting a new home outside.  So the backyard has a’ways to go.

Engineering Team of Woodworth and Woodworth, a.k.a., Keith and his brother Byron, pondering the perplexing pump.  Most of the pond innards are located under the deck.  I have signed for innumerable boxes which – upon their opening – Keith has mumbled, “For the pond.”   I do not know what the pieces of plastic and metal actually are, nor do I know what they do.  It’s easier that way.

We have less mess inside, though it’s not what you’d call “tidy.”  At least there is no table saw in the entry way, nor hammers piled on the kitchen counter,  I think you could classify the inside of the house, “no worse than usual.”

Keith tells me the next step is “rock work.”

So stay tuned for the next episode of “A Man and His Pond.”  It probably won’t be the series finale.  But at least you don’t have to worry about a writer’s strike.

Remember the pond?

It’s baccccckkkk!  And at the end of its third season.

Keith is tearing out our original backyard deck to build a pond-plumbing-friendly deck.  This new deck will be stronger and better designed than the original, and will allow for the plumbing that needs to run under it.

The pond (on the left) looks a whole lot like the last time we visited it.  That vegetation is not overgrown.  It’s….ummmm….”natural.”  Yes, that’s it.  We’ve gone back to nature.  Next thing you know, we’ll be beating tamborines and humming “Kumbaya.”

The deck stairs now lead to….nowhere.

Watch it, Hannah!  Without the deck to walk out upon, that first step is a doozy!  And straight down several feet to limestone bedrock. We’re locking – and blocking – the back door in the kitchen.

Keith is the only man I’ve ever known to actually wear out hammers.  When this project is finished, that seven-year-old with three-years-of-pond-construction Fiesta T-shirt is going in the trash.  I wouldn’t even give it to Goodwill.

Because this is not enough mess/confusion – he is also replacing the carpeting in the living room cum office with laminate flooring.

Basically, you can take any object – file cabinets, drill bits, CD’s, CAT 5 wiring, storage boxes, lamps, saws, PVC pipe, chainsaw, empty Diet Coke cans – and set them down in any room of our house, or anywhere around our house – and they look like they belong, since there’s something dust-covered and similar plopped next to it.

Stay tuned for the next installment of “A Man and His Pond.”  Maybe it’ll be the season finale?! 

Keith is standing in the bog, which is several feet from the pond.

What is that big black thing?

If you guessed “giant slip and slide” – I sure hope you’re wrong.

Keith – assisted by good friends Dan, Brett, Rick and brother Byron – laid the 500 lb. waterproof pond liner today, a crucial new chapter in the saga of “A Man and His Pond.” He paid them in brisket, ribs, beans and pecan pie – certain small (though tasty!) recompense for lugging the equivalent weight and texture of hundreds of deflated inner tubes across baked limestone.

He had one other friend from church help him one day last year.  Other than this assistance – he’s done it all himself, even with a nail through his hand, even with his knee in a brace. No Bobcat, no electric jack hammer, no dynamite (shudder) – just a cement saw, hammers, picks, buckets and lots of elbow grease effecting his vision in the limestone.

Stay tuned to this blog for the next installment of “A Man and His Pond.”  I’m thinking we’re getting close to it being a wet one.

No, no koi.  No fishies yet.  Just a 6’5″ bearded man with his knee stitched and braced sitting at the bottom of what Jed Clampett would accurately describe as the “cement pond.”  Rachel and Lois have acted as Keith’s legs today – fetching, carrying, retrieving.  Don’t ask me how he got down there.  I didn’t see, and I don’t want to know.

His scr*wdriver is affixed to what I believe to be a “drain hole.”  The bricked semi-circle in the background is, I believe, a “bog.”  I believe the sides and bottom of the pond will soon be sprayed with some type of plastic.  Beliefs – they are good things to have.

My job is – as always – to bring ice water.

Please stay tuned to this blog for further developments in the continuing saga of “A Man and His Pond.”