Lizard's Lair

Lizard's Pond - Phase 5 The Waterfall

June 4, 2007 - With a blue line drawn on my wall. I grab the rented concrete cutting saw. It's the middle of the day and hot. The "blades" to cut wear down as you go. I bought 2 at Home Depot. I think they were $10 bucks each.

The cutter is giving me a hard time in starting. I'm hot and thirsty. BTW, I'm wearing my favorite t-shirt.

My son starts it for me and hands it to me while it is running. I feel I'm ready for it.

I start cutting into the wall. I use the pipe to help guide me down straight. The concrete cutter is heavy, loud, and the vibrations go through my body. Notice all the dust from cutting? That's why the eye protection, plus the breathing mask were important.

Wow, I'm cutting down the other side and pushing this thing harder. I'm deep in the wall. Look at all the smoke and dust!

I start making the horizontal cut and just get too tired. I can't finish it. I let Manuel O. finish it.

A shot of the finished cut waterfall slot and the debris and large boulders sitting at the bottom of my pond. I  have to clear this stuff out. There is a reason I did not finish the wall on this side. Those rocks will not be an easy out.

Lizard's Pond - Phase 4 The Wall's Rebuilt

May 28, 2007 - The "completed" wall. With San Diego Pond scheduled to come and survey the site before doing the plumbing, I felt done with this part. Nope, the pond guy seriously doubted the wall and after some research and a phone call to an engineer at the block company, I rebuilt the wall.

June 4, 2007 - Not only am I going down one row, I'm glueing the blocks together, plus building extra support on the ends and in the middle. Lots of work. Notice the sprinkler pipe going up the wall. I wasn't there when the sprinkler guy put it there. Stupid.

I also had some 3/4" rebar cut to the height of my wall. I am putting gravel and those bars through the blocks as they are laid down. I'm making it as strong and unmovable as possible.

My oldest is not happy with the fact that we had to do the wall all over again. I told him it was going to be better.

Lizard's Pond - Phase 3 The Wall

May 28, 2007. We've been working hard, my two boys and me, standing outside the hole. It's 3 blocks high and a lot of work. Starting everything level and mixing and matching the different pieces we had to work with, note the different sizes of the blocks. It's the theme of the project, natural. Yet, the shapes you see say formal. So, it's a natural formal pond. Doesn't the flagstone look great?!

We have to go deeper and try to move out some of these huge boulders at the base of my wall. The plumbing is roughed in. Manuel O. is placing the first of the fourth layer of block.

Some two hours after the photo at the top of this blog was taken, we finished. Four blocks high and the coping top flagstone in place, as the sun is going down.

The inside of the hole. Notice the height of the wall from the inside? The next day, after consulting with San Diego Pond, they warn me about the height and I called the block manufacturer and talked to an engineer. He told me, the block was never meant to hold back that much force and weight. There is a formula, that escapes me right now, that calculates the weight of water by cubic feet. The inside of my pond is roughly 6 feet by 12 feet, multiply that by the almost 3 feet of wall and you get 216 square feet of water.

House at El Cid Mazatlan

 

My in-laws have a house for rent at El Cid. It's a gated community built around a golf course and tennis courts. I think the yard faces the fourth hole. There's a water pond with turtles too.

Here's some inside shots. These were taken last May and before some work was done inside the house.

 

 

The master bedroom with it's own bathroom and walk-in closet.

 

I think there's 3 bedrooms and 2 baths.

Dad's House in Mazatlan

Dad's house in the Sabalo Country neighborhood of Mazatlan. 3 Blocks from the beach and the original Pueblo Bonito Resort. It has 3 bedrooms and 3 baths. It was designed by Jorge Luna, a native Mazatlan architect.

It has a beautiful large kitchen.

A vaulted ceiling in the living room.

A wrap-around railing on the second floor. Marble flooring throughout.

Big dining room and family room too.

 

 

Nice backyard and garden with bannana, coconut, papaya trees and more.

Large master bedroom with it's large private bathoom with a jacuzzi tub.

 

 

Also, a rooftop terrace.

 

Building the Pond-Phase 2 The Hole

May 26, 2007 - The hole started with picks and shovels, then a jackhammer was brought in to break the big granite boulders that make up the base of my land. The largest boulders were used in different areas around the yard.

 

We've got some extra help with the heavy digging.

Here's my crew and the big boulder that just came out near my entryway.

May 27, 2007 - The junk piles up on my driveway. The two rear piles in center and right are the stones for the pond wall and the sand for laying the flagstone. See the pallet on the left? The pallet on the right is the blocks I'll use the build the wall around the pond. Looks like major construction.

You can see here how we marked the areas for the wall, initial pond ledge, then the deep part of the pond. We need to go deeper. There are big boulders in the way. On the left you can see the pipes are in for the rough plumbing of the pond.

I'll post more later.

Building the Pond-Phase 1 Demolition

May 13, 2007. We bought 4 Bird of Paradise plants. Those are going on the rise behind the wall. In my neighborhood, the houses are built on what's called a "zero lot line". That means the neighbor's house, as well as mine, has one wall along the plot line. That's why there is no wall or fence between my neighbor's house and mine. There is a fence at the backyard, you can see that on the right of the photo. I used landscaping chalk lines to draw on the dirt. I also laid out flagstone in the rough shape of the pond and the area around it. Thanks to my sons and wife in helping make all this happen.

May 19, 2007. One week later, the plants are in and the hard work starts. My sons are doing the heavy work, though I always start it to show them how it's done. Armando is on the roto-tiller, Manuel O. is on the jackhammer. The roto-tilling was to soften up the soil, as we need to go down a couple inches for the sand to be placed as the base of the flagstone. The jackhammering of the sidewalk started by putting a ton of holes in the concrete. Notice the sidewalk leading out? It's full of holes!

May 20, 2007, Sunday. Putting a bunch of holes in a sidewalk is one thing, breaking it up and hauling it away is a whole lot of more work. It was time to bring in help. Since I live on the edge of a rural community, there is a lot of day labor workers, eager to help a homeowner or contractor with whatever project comes along. I picked up a guy, he said he had worked on a pond project before, yeah right hehe, anyway, I think his name was Mario. He's in the hat at the back of the picture. Notice the sidewalk busted up? It took a pick and a sledge hammer to break it apart. I used my kid's plastic wagon to move the concrete pieces.

May 20, 2007. Here's "Mario" making a pile of broken concrete on my driveway. Also on my driveway is the pallet of new "rose" colored flagstone that will be my walkway, along with the coping stones for the top of the pond. The gravel and sand for the construction is also on my driveway.

May 20, 2007. The building blocks for the pond wall have now been delivered. My drive way will be devoid of parked cars for a while!

May 20, 2007. Teamwork in action, as the sidewalk is all busted up and is being carted off to the rockpile on my driveway.

Planning the Koi Pond

This is the before picture. That sidewalk will be gone and replaced with flagstone.

I measured all around the house and drew my plan with TurboCad Mac. That's the outline of my home and lot. It shows my backyard with the built-in grill on the right and a shed next to it with a palm tree behind it. The flagstone in the back of the house was installed by myself and the kids, in 2005. That was a lot of work.

Another 2 photos showing the preparatory steps. The sod was pulled off and the site cleaned and leveled.

 

Next came phase 1.

Our Pond...

I was just told that I have neglected my pond. hmm... I don't think so. I love my pond. It was my idea and my design. It's custom, just like I designed it as part of my yard.

This is just a couple months old, August 2007.

Here's another from

Here's the before picture, March, 2007.

I'll make a photo album click here