Happy Kansas Day!

While most of the Northeast was getting socked by a major snowstorm, we were enjoying unseasonable temperatures over the past few days. In fact, yesterday found us in the low 70’s and Linda and I were out riding our bikes outside. I wore biking shorts without any leg warmers and was quite comfortable.

The pond fountain is running well; additionally, all 9 fish have been seen and swimming. Before it started warming up, the ice had been approximately 6″ thick. We were able to remove the leaf net from over the pond last week (it helps keep all of the falling leaves out of the pond). The net had been firmly embedded within the overlaying ice, but we were able to pull out the final piece of ice last week and let it finish thawing on the lawn.

The temperatures are back down in the 30’s today and the winds have been gusting 15-20mph. Ah, Kansas.

I was reminded by my TimeHop app today that I’d posted to the website 3 years ago today about having trouble keeping the blog going. I really wasn’t sure what to write – the title of the post was “What to Write About“.

I was explaining to my father last week about feeling guilty for not keeping the blog up to date. He asked me, “What is the purpose of the blog? Why are you writing it?”.

It gave me good pause; I decided the purpose of the blog was to document the things going on in our lives. However, I spend most of my energy documenting my life on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In fact, I assume most anyone reading this likely sees my posts on any of the above social networks. But, that brings me back to why this blog is here. I want THIS to be a documentary of our lives lived.

If you look at my last post here (way back on December 14), you’ll see and hear the girls playing a Christmas recital with the rest of Linda’s piano students. However, a lot has happened over these past 5 weeks. Let me explain…

The following week found me extremely busy with the Kansas City Symphony Chorus performing on the Christmas concerts. I had rehearsal every night of that week and then had 6 performances between Thursday evening and Sunday evening. I was exhausted.

Of course, Christmas came right after that and I worked almost every day from the 22nd until the end of the year; all of the shifts were 4pm-2am. I couldn’t really enjoy the visit from Linda’s sister and family until the last day they were here. Ed, my brother-in-law, and I tried to do a quick tour of the Boulevard Brewing Company, but the tours were all booked and we had to settle for doing tastings in the Tasting Room.

New Year’s Eve was upon us pretty quickly and I did have the day off. We were invited to a neighbor’s house for a party; it was fun, but, because I had to work the next morning, were home and in bed pretty quick after midnight.

In short time, we gathered our friends in our basement for the K-State bowl game at the Cotton Bowl against UCLA. The Wildcats started the game pretty poorly, but they made it an interesting game and almost came back for a potential win. We lost 40-35. The great part was spending the evening with some of our closest friends – all of them K-State fans. EMAW!

This brings us up to January and we’ve continued to be very busy. However, I’m going to tell you more about that in the upcoming posts. Here’s hoping for some consistency on my part.

Linda and I have been wanting to build a pond in our backyard for several years. We have had small water fountains, but never one that created the sound that we really desired.

We had an area in the back yard that had been pegged for a while as the perfect spot. The only holdback was that it was where the swing set was located. The previous owner built it and it was perfect when we moved in when our girls were 4- and 5-years old. However, they never really used it anymore except a couple times a year when they would sit on the swing for about 45 seconds.

It was decided that the structure would come down and we would put our pond there. I enlisted deconstructing help from one of our neighbors for the price of one sixpack of beer; he owned the power tools.

We made the decision to leave a portion of the structure to create an arbor that plants could grow up and over.

We then waited for the company, Swan’s Water Gardens, to have an open date when they could get started. While Linda and I were out riding our bikes one morning, we received a phone call stating that they would be there that afternoon. We were very excited to see them come start pulling up grass and digging a hole. Stephen, Micky, and Eric were a fabulous and efficient 3-man crew!

Amazingly, this was all done in just about four hours. They said they would be back in the morning to start laying rock. They predicted it would take another 1.5 days.

The next morning arrived and they were efficient getting the liners and barriers installed. Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow were brought back with rocks and rocks and rocks. Watching all of the rocks hauled reminded me why I was glad I wasn’t the one haling all of those heavy boulders.

After the liner was laid out, the stones were installed – ONE by ONE!

The 3 pond water lines were placed within the hole just after the picture above was taken. They were secured and more rocks placed around them. Once the large boulders were laid out, a large gravel mix was used to fill in any gaps. This was not thrown in by the bucketful or shovelful, but laid carefully by hand and shovel. The meticulous work was amazing.

The rocks were all laid out by about 3pm. It would’ve taken me three weeks of daily work to get to this point. It was time to start washing the dust off all the rocks.

I was amazed at how beautiful the rocks became once the dust was washed off and their colors started showing through. After washing the rocks off and pumping out the dirty water, it was time to start filling the pond. The hose was cranked to full blast and allowed to fill the hole.

A full 55 minutes later and the pond was filled.

The pond was started at 1pm on the first day and finished by 5:45pm the next day.  WOW!

Linda spent the next few days obtaining plants and fish. We started with 10 small gold fish (we’re currently down to 9).

Here’s a picture of our waterlily that finally bloomed after sitting in the pond for almost 10 days.

If you’d like to enjoy some video of the pond and backyard, here are Instagram videos posted. Enjoy.

http://instagram.com/p/r-lqGOluHd/

The relaxation possibilities are endless – from the hammock, to the dining table, and finally to the patio furniture.

http://instagram.com/p/sIvTfzluBd/

And finally, enjoy the goldfish!

http://instagram.com/p/sfqi9pluGi/