Mucking out the Water
Feature
June 10, 2012
Sunday – we
were supposed to have a driving lesson today but our instructor texted in sick –
after we were already at our pick up location and ready to go. OH Well, gave us the Sunday free for other
things. We decided that we needed to
practice our barbeque skills on some good British Beef since it isn’t always
cut like we know it in the States. A quick
stop at Waitrose to get the main dish and then home for some good hard
gardening.
We have a
gardener. He comes every other week and
does as much as he can in the allotted time but it isn’t always enough. Imagine our surprise when last week he pulled
out a big weed and it appears that there is a water feature in our garden! Who knew!?
So we decided to clear it out and see if we can use it. I have always wanted a water feature and
sometimes have tried for some piddley little ones that don’t amount to much and
aren’t very satisfying but this one looks to be a nice big waterfall.
Hubby
started shoveling out the muck and wet leaves and such and realized almost
immediately that it was going to take mucking out by hand because the bottom
pit is covered with a membrane and we have no idea what kind of shape it is in
and certainly didn’t want to put a hole in it.
He keeps shoveling out with his hands and shoveling and shoveling until
he finally is close to reaching bottom.
The pit is about 2 ½ to 3’ deep. He
did find the pump which was buried in all the dirt and leaves and also a switch
on the side of the falls to turn on the pump.
I went to
the top and started working from that end.
He’d already cleared some of the ivy and we knew that the water was
supposed to run from cement basins to the bottom pit and then be pumped back up
to the top. I couldn’t find where the plastic
hose was coming back into the top at first but after I hacked out some more ivy
and then cleaned out the first basin, I found it. It is full of dirt and we will probably have
to pressure hose water into the whole thing from the bottom to blow it out but
unfortunately, our hose isn’t long enough and we might be on a hose pipe ban
anyway. Not sure about that. We’ll figure out some way to do it without
messing up any bans.
We keep
hand shoveling and trowel shoveling and got the fish net for some more
shoveling until we had everything cleared.
It is a delightful run from the top into 3 basins and then into the
bottom pit. With some of the ivy cleared
away, we found some other blooming flowers.
Have no idea what they are either but they are pretty.
Now for the
big moment; my husband went and flipped the switch to give power to the pump,
we thought. Of course nothing
happened. Oh well. Didn’t really think it would. But the important part is that we have a
water fall! How exciting it that? Might take us a few weeks to get it up and
running but we are trying. Hopefully the
hose that runs from the bottom to the top is not broken anywhere otherwise it
might take a lot longer to fix. Can’t
wait to see it in action.
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