P³ Photos

Not to get all Flickr about it or anything, but I have been meaning to post a picture or two of the Pond/Patio Project.

I can't seem to find any pics of the pre-destruction patio, but here is a (slightly blurry) pic of the pond circa summer 2001:


Note the bits of slate that rim the pond: Evelin always hated those.

The first step in the P³, sensibly enough, was to drain the pond, which was accomplished by running a hose in the backyard and starting up a siphon. The next morning, the water was mostly gone and I had to take out the plants, which was followed by cutting out the liner (all of this has been gone over before). What was left was a big, pond-shaped hole in the ground:



The next step was to start work on the patio — moving furniture, pulling up pavers, taking out the top course of timbers, etc. — to get at all the dirt that lay below. Once the dirt was exposed, the shoveling began. Here is a pic of the patio as of Saturday


In the foreground are the timbers and some other P³-related detritus that will eventually need to be hauled away.

What has me worried, as one can see from the photo, the patio is at best two-fifths deconstructed, but here is the pond


There's room for some more dirt, and today's rain will help compact things and get the dirt to settle even more, but there's a lot more dirt under the patio, or to express it mathematically:
I figure there's going to be lots of dirt left over to spread in various places throughout the yard or maybe I can put up the equivalent of a "Free Fill Dirt" sign on Freecycle ...