Day 5, Wednesday, June 3, 2026: Spring becomes stream
We awoke to a beautiful day with some visitors showing up bright and early outside our kitchen window and hanging around for a couple hours underneath the shady canopy.
The day’s work began with a stand-up to discuss the lower pond and how to shape it now that it was more circular thanks to erosion from some large rocks. We also discussed mapping out the winding stream that would join both the ponds.
P, D and P2 spent some time flattening out the bottom of the bird bath right above the bottom pond. In hindsight, we thought we should have cleared out that area before digging out the pond, but better late than never. The top of the pond there was hard to clear out because of the many leftover roots from an old maple, some feeder roots from the ash tree and a miscellany of other plant matter. With some pick axe and shovel action, the crew was able to neaten it out in a few minutes.
We also settled on a flat rock that we would like to have at the top of our little waterfall over in the upper pond. The crew discussed the best height and angle to place this rock.
While not in a bean shape, P left the morning shift with the lower pond looking pretty good albeit somewhat wider, with extra help from D and P2.
P and Y retired early after the morning shift, but D and P2 went on to shape out our winding stream. Like all other features in our execution, this one morphed from a tiny, little winding spring to a broad 24 inch stream. To level off the ground which was at a level lower than we wanted, D and P2 put in some big stones as a retaining wall to preserve the edge of the stream bed.
Another big win for the day was the removal of Spirea bush’s root base. We hear it was quite the adventure with P2 pulling out the roots with the aid of his truck, but all the photographers missed the big event. Now, we have a clean spot for our new globe spruce!
Unplanned rain and thunder foiled any thoughts of an afternoon shift after our visit to the stone store and Home Depot where we took stock of our options for rocks to line the stream bed and the path. We closed the day early and had a calm dinner together – some of us had put in just one shift after all!
