Long overdue post!

I haven't posted in such a long time!  My pond has been progressing slowly, by the end of last summer/fall, I completed 6 courses of block with horizontal and vertical rebar, stubbed in both the bottom drains and all seven TPR's (tangential pond returns) into the filter pit, and got the filter pit walls in place, I still need to fill all the block cells with cement.  I have one more course of block to mortar on the pond, this last course will be a killer because the walls are so high on the filter pit side of the pond and these blocks weigh around 35lbs each and this is my last chance to make sure it is perfectly level.
Here it is near the end of last year.

Here is view into the filter pit.

While I was working on the pond, Craig was sifting the dirt pile left behind from the dig, his mission in life was to get this done by the end of the season, I helped here and there, but this was mostly his project.  

It had taken on a life of its own.

But he kept at it and didn't give up!

Finally, it was all gone!

We poured some cement pads and used all of the rocks Craig sifted out of the dirt pile on the north side of the house where we keep the garbage cans.  It was always a muddy mess over there, it gets no sun so the grass didn't grow well and it never really dried up.  Ignore the tape on the house, had a little incident with the siding and Craig taped that little piece while the silicone was drying after he fixed it.

We used the dirt to level up the yard, we built a little retaining wall around the shed because we added nearly two feet to the yard and we couldn't move the shed easily.

We also had some random flowers pop up where the dirt pile was, I rescued them and they grew like crazy.

So fast forward to this Spring, I made a change in plans, to be continued in my next post.....