DIY Dog Pond, Planning

All great things begin with an idea, in this instance building a pond in my front yard, which we talked about in the DIY Dog Pond, Intro post.  If you were inspired by that post, or are just really bored, I'm going to chat about taking the idea and moving it to the planning phase.

Still with me? Let's chat!

Water freezes here in Alaska, typically about 3 feet deep, so the first decision we made was the depth of the pond.  I want the fish to be able to live year-round in the pond, rather than move back into the dining room each winter, so we decided a portion of the pond should be 8 feet deep so the fish can live under the ice.  Apparently, fish metabolisms slow down when water is cold, so they sort-of go dormant down there in the depths.  I plan to swim in the pond and have a dog that likes to jump into the water, so deeper is better.  In the spring, I'll include a post here about how the pond, and fish, fared through winter.

Along with the maximum depth area, we also designed shallower areas of the pond so it could be safer and more usable.  I wanted a ramp that began at one pond edge and slowly sloped down deeper into the water - this is for safety, so someone in the water can use the ramp to exit the pond rather than trying to climb up a straight side.  We also built in a wide shelf that runs the length of one side of the pond and is roughly 3 feet deep: this is for plants and filters and those who want to wade rather than swim. 

Rex likes to stand on the shallow edge of the shelf.

My pond has some narrow places for the dogs to leap across and is wider for the main section to accommodate multiple dogs at once and for swimming and I curved it to conform to my landscape, so it doesn't look completely out of place as if I just plopped it down at random.

Speaking of pond placement, we didn't want it under any trees or large shrub that drop leaves, petals, pollen, and other stuff that will gunk up the bottom of the pond.  Who likes touching gunk when they swim?  Gross.  To that end, we did have to relocate a 40 year old crabapple tree - hardy soul, it's been dug up and moved twice now since I've lived here, but it appears to have endured the transplant (again) and TheFather is rewarding it with copious amounts of water as it re-establishes itself.  In Fall, I'll include a post here about how we deal with leaves that are blown into the water.

No more tree above Rex.

Alright, that's the plan!  If you're a visual person, here's a very rough sketch of the pond layout.

Next, I'll review the supplies that turned this project into reality.