Night Terror

Did you ever wake up in the middle of the night thinking … My God, what have I done?  Well I did that a couple of days ago after I got the report from the house inspector that had a list of things a mile long.  However, the next morning, I remembered that I had lived for years in houses with two prong outlets and that window glazing wasn’t that big of a deal and that this will continue to be an adventure.

Then there is the issue of the pond.  The farm has a small “pond” that’s really just standing water, but it seems to be there all the time, so after thinking it will be a big problem I decided it was a good opportunity to learn how to build a pond.  In our last house, we had a small pond, one of those you buy in kit form.  We had a landscaper put it in and we really loved it.  I bought some “Koi”, which were really just feeder goldfish (10 for a dollar), and we enjoyed watching them grow and then get eaten by the raccoons.  Well, they didn’t eat all of them, but the raccoons definitely loved the pond.

I started doing some research and found that building a pond can be very good for the land and for your peace of mind.  It will also be interesting for the horses to play around with.  When I read articles about farm ponds, they say “how many acres do you want the pond to be”, and I want it to be about 15 feet in diameter.   According to the formula I found “For an Oval Pond: Water Volume = 0.8 X ( length (feet) X width X average depth X 7.43 gallons/cubic foot”. I’d have about 270 gallons for a pond 15 feed it diameter and about 3 feet deep.  I’m in the planning stage at this point and there are so many projects that I’ve got to prioritize them so I may not get to the pond this year, but at least I’m going to find out how to build one.

Speaking of projects, here are some of them:

1. Clean and repair old chicken coops and get new straw
2. Get some chickens so it is officially a farm
3. Put up fence for the dogs in the back yard
4. Design the fences for the horses
5. Revise the layout of the barn
6. Put in gutters on the barn and a rain barrel to collect the rain water
7. Turn a puddle into a small pond

So, the night terrors are gone and the project list has started, and we haven’t even closed on the property yet, but that’s just a matter of time.