last year, around this time, my housemate decided to redecorate his space…
from removing the fireplace, to drywalling, to putting in new ceiling tiles, to painting the space with two colours, and reorganizing his stuff, he worked hard with help from friends and family…
it came out very nicely…
and he has enjoyed the space…
this fall he has been preparing for an interesting pet…
spent time at The Leaf Thursday afternoon letting guests know that the biomes were closed until Friday…
happy to spot a gorgeous flower on the tall magnolia;-)…
there were two of us, so we had opportunities to take turns checking out how the work on the Enchanted Forest display was going… the gardeners were moving at warp speed to finish up…
I also had a lovely chat with one of the people from the Bonsai Winnipeg group as they waited to place their tree in the new display…
then, in the evening, my grandson and I attended a members-only viewing of the display… I was especially excited because I was able to bring a buddy… as everyone who knows me knows, I don’t like to do things on my own;-(…
started at Kristina’s on Corydon, where we had a Saginaki Lamb burger which we shared…
it was a mix of beef and lamb and was delicious… we ordered fries to go with it and they were also very tasty… the wait staff were efficient and friendly… we even got a piece of cake with our bill…
a lovely atmosphere… hadn’t been there for a long time but will try to get back there again soon…
next, we went to the edge of St. James to Original Joe’s where we shared the Big Pierogski which came with fries…
they brought it on two plates for us, so that was nice…
it was a good burger and we ate every bite, lol… the fries were fine and our server pleasant…
certainly a different vibe, and a bit dark… probably showing my age, 😂… interesting to see the difference between a privately owned restaurant and a chain on the same evening;-)…
we did spend quite some time online, deciding on which burgers we’d like to taste and where we wanted to go…
it was a fun outing and I thoroughly enjoyed it;-)…
the work on the pond waterfall area started in early June… when the first two fixes didn’t work we moved on to more serious attempts…
the water in the upper pond was removed, and all the gunk was vacuumed out…
a group of three attempted to lift out the waterfall rock… unfortunately, it broke in the process… one of us might have had a meltdown;-(…
next the remaining blocks were removed and a new liner was installed… then the blocks were put back in… a bit of a puzzle to remember where each one went, lol… possibly they should have been numbered;-)…
the next step involved filling cracks with foam and gluing down some of the rocks…
with help from a friend the main piece of the waterfall rock was carefully lowered back into its spot…
it took three of us, but the three pieces of the waterfall rock were joined together with special rock cement and we waited a week for it to cure…
then the flat rock portion was glued down and left to cure…
next the hose was put down inside the liner and the waterfall spillway was placed back into the waterfall rock… there were a lot of crossed fingers at that point…
finally, on Sunday night, August 10th the waterfall was turned on…
it was too late for a good picture, so this one was taken the next morning…
there is no leaking 🤪…
a great job by my housemate and various friends throughout the process as issues arose and heat and rain caused stoppages…
what a treat to hear the water running and not have to worry about adding water all the time;-)…
we’ve been working on the pond to try and fix the leak that only seems to happen when the waterfall is running…
we purchased a new hose from a pond store and it took a while to get here… then we had to wait for a good day to work on it…
took extra help to pull the old hose and insert the new one… next a new connection to the pump had to be purchased and finally on Sunday evening the waterfall was turned on… the pump hadn’t been cleaned, but the water was coming through the waterfall much stronger that previously…
we thought the problem was where the water meets the deck on the deck side…
this how it looked at the end of Tuesday…
and it was still leaking, sigh…
this is how it looked on Thursday, although we may be getting closer to the problem…
the pond has continued to leak but we thought we had the problem figured out…
water seemed to be puddling under a UV clarifier which was installed in the pond at the beginning, but which never accomplished its job and has been unplugged for a number of years…
we picked up a piece to connect the two hoses together and with a lot of cutting and muscle, were able to disconnect it entirely… so happy, thinking the problem had been solved…
turned the pump back on and watched water still coming out where the hose goes under blocks and the deck…
so, the issue appears to be that the six or seven feet of hose from the pump to the waterfall needs to be replaced… we are considering ways to accomplish this, which may involve removing a good sized piece of the deck to get at it, sigh…