“Did you guys plan on doing this while I was visiting?” asks the pond builder’s son as he toils away today. No we didn’t, but thank goodness the pond builder’s son was hanging around the farm in between his Army assignments. We hired the Octaform consultant to come out for two days to help us…
Tag: koi pond
What could go wrong?
Pond building is never a smooth, straight road. We definitely hit a little speed bump thinking we were taking a shortcut. We let the concrete contractor pour the floor when we were not on-site. Looked good on the video cam recording but upon inspection when we returned to the farm, the pond builder was very…
New koi pond floor is poured!!!
It’s been 23 months since we closed on our farm…10 months that the koi have been living in a swimming pool in our garage…crossing our fingers that we are a few weeks away from a functioning outdoor pond. This morning our waterproofed cement pond floor was poured. The preparation for the pour was looking pretty…
Summer around the koi pond
When you are done with the bulk of pond building tasks, it feels like you have your weekends back. Pond builder and I went out for bike rides, out to eat and just tooled around. I spent some time filming with my new GoPro5. It is the best GoPro so far (I’ve been using the…
Birthday fishes are always better than birthday stitches
Last year, the pond builder took me to beautiful Lake Louise for my birthday and I ended up with 26 stitches due to a horse riding accident. This year the pond builder gave me some beautiful koi – fishes are better than stitches. The beautiful koi from Mystic Koi, Upland, California flew in today via…
The pond builder is too tired to watch fireworks
The pond builder is exhausted. This weekend he toiled under the hot sun around the lower pond. I can hear the local fireworks outside, but the pond builder is falling asleep. You might be wondering why we’re working outside all the time but it really is our hobby. We enjoy puttering around the yard and…
Sod is our friend
Just over a week ago, we had barely finished the lower pond area to be somewhat presentable to our guests. Lots of dirt areas covered with mulch, some areas just dirt and rocks, but in general it was okay. This weekend we tackled the landscaping and while it’s not finished, we’re quite pleased by the…
How much should I feed my koi?
Feeding the koi is always a concern since you want big, fat koi and in Minnesota the growing time is somewhat limited due to temperature. Over the weekend we talked a lot about feeding and Michael Hernandez of Tomigai koi food recommended to us – 2% of the koi body weight. While we have warm…
What a difference 9 days can make…Mr. Pond Builder is on a roll
The lower pond build site is not the most attractive part of the yard but I’m excited to report that the lower pond is almost ready to be home for the koi that are still in the garage. We’re thinking they should be out here before the weekend. Summer has turned on over night so…
Spring morning in Minnesota
Winter seems really long in Minnesota. Spring seems to turn everything green overnight and the plants come back to life pretty quickly. We’re still in the middle of opening up our ponds. The upper pond filtration equipment is being redone and the koi might come out of the garage this week. The lower pond re-do…
Summer is over :-(
It’s Fall now and I feel I have missed a great deal of the beautiful Minnesota summer this year. I certainly have been a little behind in posting, so I’m going to play catch up. Mostly photos but read the captions… First up is a video of the koi taken about a week ago. All…
Cleaning up the Lower Pond
Our lower pond has been taken over by string algae! The algae had gotten so thick it was clogging up the bottom drain. The pond digger decided that drastic action needed to be taken and he drained the pond. Over ten hours, he thoroughly scrubbed the walls of string algae. While the pond was being…
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