Today we went to the Laguna Koi Ponds store and bought the basin, filter and pump for the new pond. We went with a smallish 72 gallon pond, although Chuck kept eyeing the larger 150 gallon and up ones. I had visions briefly of a remake of Waterworld in the backyard, but we dodged that bullet and kept it small. We plan on having goldfish this time (no Koi, as one Koi needs a minimum of 300 gallons of water to thrive as they just grow not to fit their space but to their normal size which if you think about it could be really, really gross if they were in too small a pond/tank – imagine a grotesque sucking Koi suddenly popping out of its too small confines). Anyway, once we got home, Chuck hit the backyard with a vengeance, throwing himself into taking out the rest of the rubber tree’s roots that were blocking the area where the pond will go. As he hacked away, Mia watched for a bit, then went to work on the other side of the yard digging a hole of her own. She will be the saddest to see the dirt go – she’s been having a grand time running, rolling and digging in the dirt. I retreated to the office upstairs to work while they dug their hearts out. A few hours later, Chuck called out for me to come and see – he had done it, he had beaten the root system into submission. A huge ugly stump lay on the ground at his feet; he had indeed triumphed.

As he dug we discovered a new swamp in the making in the back of the yard by the fence. The bad news is that we don’t know where the water is coming from. The good news is we are puttting a drain in so it isn’t a huge deal (we hope). Our neighbors down the street were having a huge load of cement poured into their backyard on Saturday, so we went down and talked to the cement guys and got a price and their phone number. Chuck is now feeling inspired to do the framing himself and just have the cement poured – nicely getting around the fact that we can’t find a contractor to save our lives.