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- Apr 24, 2017
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I am an expat from Maryland, in a totally new environment. I have two projects as we put water features into our very hilly and rocky property in the Andes. The climate is a whole new challende. We have no cold weather; we have wet and dry. Very. Both. SO I want to use some existing boulders to create a small pond, and I want to stick a cute little well type pool into a big rock wall. Fish are probably a wait and see. My husband loves koi but with us travelling back to the States for now we may not want to risk it. Around here people build tilapia ponds with liners, and if they take out the water for very long the liners degrade in the powerful sunshine.
Anyway. Here is my whole thing for you clever folks to mull over. My thought was to create a rock wall to close in the existing semicircle of gorgeous boulders, creating a small pool deep enough to sit in and cool off, surrounded by ferns and orchids. Maybe 150 gallons. Possibly a little bigger. I thought to line with chicken wire and ferrocement, put a cleanout type valve in the rock wall so that when I empty it to clean it out, the water will run into a channel to water fruit trees- oranges, mangoes, sapotes...yum. When it is dry here, water is like gold. When it is wet, I will need a spillover area in the lip. The water would come down from the tanks on the mountain, and enter the pond/pool through a hose into a natural crack in one of the boulders. I will need to fill the cracks down below with cement, which is partially motivated by worry about this being snake and scorpion friendly rock, snakes here being very serious, and partially to create the bed for the water to spread out in prior to trickling over into the pool. I was thinking the outlet from the pump would come in through the same crack. As for a pump, I gather that small ponds are fine with submersible pumps. We do have fairly inexpensive power, but it's a lot of work to bury all the wire- rocks and more rocks. And it's Ecuador so we have a lot of sun, even during the rains. So solar would be great. But technology is all imported with very high taxes, so anything at all techy is expensive, Chinese, or both.
The other project is sort of a place to fill up watering cans, with artsy charm. I have a dry laid rock wall- we are talking very large rocks that my worker flipped into place with a tool called a baretta. As my steep slope turns a 90 degree corner, I would like to build a little rock circle. with a broad lip, possibly even a shallowly sunken spot for birds to enjoy, and a drain in the wall for cleaning, again leading to channels to the trees. I thought to put a tall backsplash or whatever you'd call it. The place is convenient to a hose coming down from the tanks. In the middle of the backsplash I will have a faucet, and maybe a slot for trickling water to recirculate. This would be about a 100 gallons.
I can ask friends to mule in small, light pieces of tech. Usually the reshippers that people order from the US with charge about 6 bucks a pound and sometimes you don't get it for a long time or ever. I have cheap manual labor, and loads of free rocks. No ice, ever. Some security issues perhaps. And deadly snakes, although I haven't seen any, and scorpions. What y'all think?
Anyway. Here is my whole thing for you clever folks to mull over. My thought was to create a rock wall to close in the existing semicircle of gorgeous boulders, creating a small pool deep enough to sit in and cool off, surrounded by ferns and orchids. Maybe 150 gallons. Possibly a little bigger. I thought to line with chicken wire and ferrocement, put a cleanout type valve in the rock wall so that when I empty it to clean it out, the water will run into a channel to water fruit trees- oranges, mangoes, sapotes...yum. When it is dry here, water is like gold. When it is wet, I will need a spillover area in the lip. The water would come down from the tanks on the mountain, and enter the pond/pool through a hose into a natural crack in one of the boulders. I will need to fill the cracks down below with cement, which is partially motivated by worry about this being snake and scorpion friendly rock, snakes here being very serious, and partially to create the bed for the water to spread out in prior to trickling over into the pool. I was thinking the outlet from the pump would come in through the same crack. As for a pump, I gather that small ponds are fine with submersible pumps. We do have fairly inexpensive power, but it's a lot of work to bury all the wire- rocks and more rocks. And it's Ecuador so we have a lot of sun, even during the rains. So solar would be great. But technology is all imported with very high taxes, so anything at all techy is expensive, Chinese, or both.
The other project is sort of a place to fill up watering cans, with artsy charm. I have a dry laid rock wall- we are talking very large rocks that my worker flipped into place with a tool called a baretta. As my steep slope turns a 90 degree corner, I would like to build a little rock circle. with a broad lip, possibly even a shallowly sunken spot for birds to enjoy, and a drain in the wall for cleaning, again leading to channels to the trees. I thought to put a tall backsplash or whatever you'd call it. The place is convenient to a hose coming down from the tanks. In the middle of the backsplash I will have a faucet, and maybe a slot for trickling water to recirculate. This would be about a 100 gallons.
I can ask friends to mule in small, light pieces of tech. Usually the reshippers that people order from the US with charge about 6 bucks a pound and sometimes you don't get it for a long time or ever. I have cheap manual labor, and loads of free rocks. No ice, ever. Some security issues perhaps. And deadly snakes, although I haven't seen any, and scorpions. What y'all think?
