We've been torn between adopting battery hens, keeping bees or creating a wildlife friendly urban patch. We've weighed the pros and the cons, attended talks and borrowed how-to books from the library. However the aged toads, the nervous newts, the bumbling bees, the curious insects, the chattering birds that claim our garden as their rightful own rendered our deliberation moot.
We decided to install a larger, deeper pond since our first pond (puddle) was full to brimming with toad tadpoles and newt larvae last spring.
The digging of the hole for the pond was redolent of childhood sandpit excavations; those earnest attempts to tunnel to the other side of the planet. Disappointingly no crystals, fossils, neolithic remains or roman or medieval debris were unearthed in the diggings.
We stopped and started and stopped to allow the blue tits time to feed their brood...
... and to rest our aching biceps - sparrow's kneecaps.
We made sure the top of the pond would be level as the garden slopes.
We lined the base of the hole with a 5cm layer of builder's sand.
We laid in the liner and checked the levels again.
Meanwhile, a quiet but overt show of protest was held in a sunny spot of the raised beds throughout the digging activities. Demands were made for a replacement sunning platform - tout de suite!.
The liner was secured in place by progressively filling the pond in stages and then back filling the hole. We patted & tamped the earth around the fiberglass shell by hand, whilst we reminisced about our mud-cake tea parties of yore.
Some plants surrounding the old pond were carefully transplanted to the new site, however the old pond will not be emptied for a couple of months to give the newts time to do their thing and to allow the new pond water to settle.
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