CW's Back Yard Water Garden Begins!

[combatwombat]

Took the wife to the airport this morning to send her off on a work trip, then did a 2hr round trip out to the boonies to pick up the only chunk of 24" culvert that I've seen on any marketplace in weeks. 6' of the stuff for $100. Not bad. Made a nasty buzzing sound at 65mph strapped to the top of the Focus.

Might pick up more supplies tomorrow, then progress halts again as it's just me and the toddler for 2 days before wife comes home and we head to the beach for 3 days.

Can't believe it, but I'm going to be racing the fall rainy season again to get this damn pond done. I think GPF should implement annual award ceremony so that I can be voted "world's slowest pond builder."

 

[GBBUDD]

You won that award 3 months ago

 

[brokensword]

You won that award 3 months ago

+100

 

[GBBUDD]

In all fairness @combatwombat im just now coming close to finishing my pond Heck i even have a couple more ideas i keep flirting with. i did not do the cistern the first year. But i did do the two bogs. Speaking of which you have the negative edge and the cistern underway the pond is dug and wall started what are you doing for a bog or filter and where.

 

[combatwombat]

what are you doing for a bog or filter and where.

Bog filter is moving to the other end of the pond, and I am also planning to do another bog filter w/ pvc grid at the bottom of the pond. Between the two, I will achieve 33% filter size. Will also have a stream flowing into pond from under the deck. Flirting with the idea of doing a DIY bio-falls there, too, or maybe build a sand and gravel filter that I only run occasionally, dumping into stream for fines filtering.

 

[GBBUDD]

damn it SPEED IT UP I'M NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER I want to see this one up and runnning. i bet you even give @brokensword a yellow submarine pond view. With all that and what you have going now I'll be older then

 

[brokensword]

damn it SPEED IT UP I'M NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER I want to see this one up and runnning. i bet you even give @brokensword a yellow submarine pond view. With all that and what you have going now I'll be older then

oooh, oooh, me, pick me, oooh, ooh; yellow submarine pond view!!! You mean like this, @GBBUDD ??


Chasing Dory

 

[brokensword]

I'll be older then

you're talking about the impossible, GB. Wait, did I specify that's only for the latter?

 

[combatwombat]

Hey @Jhn, why didn't you tell me if I push the track controls forward on Barney while the cab is rotated 180º, that I'll drive the machine into the hole?

 

[GBBUDD]

I hope this is a bad joke. YOUR HERE SO YOU MUST BE IN ONE PIECE

 

[Jhn]

Hey @Jhn, why didn't you tell me if I push the track controls forward on Barney while the cab is rotated 180º, that I'll drive the machine into the hole?

Ya know when you drive heavy equipment as much as you drive a car, those things are just common sense. Also the blade is the front of the excavator….Did have an employee one time say to me the controls on the excavator are backwards when I push forward it goes backward… told him spin it around and try again. Then he was the butt of some jokes for the next week.

Seriously though hope you and Barney are ok.

 

[GBBUDD]

Then he was the butt of some jokes for the next week.

He had to be a good worker those guys usually get banned for a while from even getting near equipment. so if it was only a weeks ribbing then he obviously had a lot to offer

 

[GBBUDD]

@combatwombat careful with your 24" culvert with kids around like i said the cap i used comes with screws to secure the cap but you know there will be many times it will be open or not secured. One thing i did do with the 24" in the cistern was to notch half of it so half the cistern actual sits on top of the aquablocks and the other goes down to the bottom where it is the lowest point where the water will drain to that area . Speaking of which it looked like your base is dead flat which is fine but at one end you'll want to have the pump in a deep spot i made that away from the drop and potential sediment build up.

 

[Jhn]

I wouldn’t go as far as to call him good and being the butt of jokes on our job the guys receiving it wouldn’t call it ribbing. He said he knew how to run it, so had him hop in and try. It was midi excavator in an open flat area, he couldn’t really do any damage, if I remember correctly that was the last time he ran equipment. He was the same guy that was critiquing my other employees ability to paint our tow boat, told him to shut the hell up and paint the f’ing boat. Think he lasted another day before he got canned, think he lasted about 2 weeks.

Most of the guys we get tell me how great they are and how much they can do. Pretty much tell them you don’t need to tell me, when we get to the job we will find out, 99% of the time I’m like wtf are you doing, thought you knew how to do stuff. In my line of work there is nowhere to hide if your an idiot, job is to dangerous and the work is too hard to suffer fools.

 

[GBBUDD]

I hear yeah loud and clear. Not that i EVER chased anyone offf a job site before. I had one FOREMAN in the middle of talking the project he was working on a simple excavation of 16 but it had rock at the bottom so we needed a hole ram. Well he had a 14'-6" long casing that had to be installed before the pole was set in the 16 foot excavation. well when the casing was sticking out above the grade by a foot and a half he had to break out a calculator on his phone to tell me that the excavation was 16 feet deep. When in fact it was only 13 feet but he was animate that he had got it. My job was not to stop him but to start the paper work that the hole / structure was out of compliance. YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID Weeks later the same foreman had a laborer working under a dump truck with process partially frozen under the lifted load in a hole compacting the soil. that was the last draw he was dismissed.