The pond

Our pond...  

And how it looked on that day I discovered our little white cottage 

sitting at the bottom of the road down the hill... 

Desolated and abandoned, but I saw so much potential there then.  It was something like seeing without yet seeing... then one day this summer we cleaned, dug, hauled, removed, planted… and established a garden around it.

Little by little it all started taking shape...

Months later we cleaned, drained old water, removed all debris, 
patched and repaired cracks, sealed, painted…

We wanted a darker color for our pond to give it a more natural look, but we couldn't find the appropriate fish friendly waterproof concrete paint suitable for ponds, except for this grayish one.

Then we installed the pump
...and filled it up with water

I collected mossy sticks from a huge recently fallen tree branch and brought them over…

We searched around our little white cottage for rocks and found some pretty substantial ones… we dug them out and brought them to the pond...

 

Big pebbles... small pebbles

Added some water plants... floating plants...
pretty plants...

And invited some friends over... of the make believe variety... 

But always in the hope of accommodating some real ones later…

This is just a prelude to an unfinished project.  Bigger decorative rocks will have to be added later on, as well as larger ornamental grasses and some more climbers to cover bared walls, but it certainly is a huge beginning.  And I am more than happy with how much we have accomplished by the end of the first summer.

 Truly amazing...

me thinks!

“Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables