{"id":32882,"date":"2024-05-07T19:17:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T23:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=32882"},"modified":"2025-04-11T16:21:27","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T20:21:27","slug":"note-from-self-water-feature-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2024\/05\/note-from-self-water-feature-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Note from Self: Water Feature 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

A Kentucky country singer named Larry Redmon wrote and recorded a number called, “Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone<\/a>,” which could very well have been the theme music for the many days I have spent cleaning\/fixing\/rebuilding our modest water feature over the past decade-plus.<\/p>\r\n

But, didn’t you break your toe and decide you were done with all that last year, my readers may well ask!\u00a0 Well, here’s the latest and greatest (unmute to hear water and bird sounds):<\/p>\r\n

https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/WaterFeature2024.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\r\n

The big change I made this spring was installing a low platform in the pool, over which I laid a sheet of filter fabric to keep debris out of the pool, and then laying flat stones on top of that.\u00a0 So the water reservoir itself is now invisible — there’s only a little water on the surface of the rocks, to make it easy to blow leaves out.\u00a0 And hopefully no more sludge to scoop out in the spring.<\/p>\r\n

Here is a brief history of the Pool at Pooh Corner.\u00a0 Click the links, there will be a quiz.<\/p>\r\n

2012:<\/strong>\u00a0 The original platform<\/a> for the statue, with just a dribble of water.<\/p>\r\n

2016:<\/strong>\u00a0 In the quest for ever more splash, I added the double cascade<\/a>.\u00a0 The water reservoir was just a 10-gallon pail hidden in a drain in front of the statue, which only accommodated a small pump.<\/p>\r\n

2017:<\/strong>\u00a0 We paid some people to rebuild the water feature and dig out a proper pool so that a bigger pump could be installed.\u00a0 The thing turned into a rock quarry<\/a> and took a good bite out of the walkway as well.\u00a0 I had misgivings from the start.<\/p>\r\n

2022:<\/strong>\u00a0 Now known as the Pit of Despair, the water feature was continuously plagued by leaks and debris<\/a>.\u00a0 I decided that I would take matters into my own hands and rebuild it myself in the spring.<\/p>\r\n

2023:<\/strong>\u00a0 My rebuild project came to a pathetic halt after I fell and broke my toe.\u00a0 The people I hired to finish the job did OK but I could see their hearts weren’t into it — it wasn’t their usual line-of-business, they acted like they were doing me a favor, and they really weren’t on board with my objectives (minimal maintenance).\u00a0\u00a0 But it looked nice<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

Which brings us to now.\u00a0 I never read Moby Dick<\/em> but I wonder if I unconsciously turned the water feature into a Captain Ahab kind of retirement obsession.\u00a0 It bothers me that such a trivial thing has grabbed so much of my mind and my time.\u00a0 But in the words of Texas gospel blues singer Blind Willie Johnson<\/a>, it’s nobody’s fault but mine<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Kentucky country singer named Larry Redmon wrote and recorded a number called, “Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone,” which could very well have been the theme music for the many days I have spent cleaning\/fixing\/rebuilding our modest water feature over … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes-from-self"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32882"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34933,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32882\/revisions\/34933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}