Stream rebuild part 2

The stream rebuild project is coming along slowly. Lots of days where it was either way too hot, raining, or I was just too busy meant that I didn't do much on it until this past weekend.

Sunday morning I took advantage of cooler temperatures -- albeit in 90%+ humidity -- and got some work done.

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There were a a few design choices that I had not made decisions on, but getting out there in the dirt has a way of focusing me. Just do something and it will come together!

One decision was whether or not to use the bucket for the reservoir again. I decided "yes"...

...but with a modification: the liner will completely fill the bucket this time (in the old design the liner just hung over the edge of the bucket which left a potential leak site). The bucket is for structure mainly.

Because the bottom of it has lots of bumps, I filled it with sand to smooth it out:

That was another problem with the previous design: it was really hard to clean out the bottom of the reservoir because of those bumps!

I found a tiny fern seedling as I removed bricks to rebuild:

This spot got a lot of sun, so I'm not sure why this was growing here exactly. Of course I relocated it!

I made the main "water step" sturdier, as I don't want anything to sag over time.

The outer edge got a beefier brick treatment because this was probably the main source of leaks in the old design:

I'll pack clay around these to smooth it out, and remember that everything you see here will soon be covered by pond liner -- this is just the foundation.

After about 90 minutes or so I had had enough, even though there was much more I could have done.

With rain in the forecast for the next couple of days, I got out my old pond liner scraps to cover everything up:

Now that the bucket is in place I don't want it filling with water -- not yet!

If the weather cooperates this week I might have the liner and some of the rocks back in place for another update next week. We'll see...

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