“You load 52 tons and whaddya get?”  Depends on how you stack those rocks.  And the pitch of your land.  And how much water you add -- try 10,000 gallons running thru eight waterfalls and turning over every 45 minutes.  All that water and only eight fish?  It was 31 degrees (very hard on most plants) as we took pictures that morning, so we plan to add a spring visit in 2004.

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John's backyard as seen from the Echo Valley Golf Course.

From the adjoining golf course you might not suspect there’s a large pond up there.  Some golfers know the pond’s there.   John says they like to wet their golf towels in his pond.  He also has to retrieve a few errant golf balls once in a while.  Not as much of a nuisance as the rock delivery truck that backed into and split the tree on the left.  If you look close you can see the cables holding it together.  Let’s go up onto the second-floor balcony above and take a bird’s eye look at his pond.

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You come down the steps on the right and see the head waters of the pond on the left.

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To the left, we see half of the lower pond.  Plenty more pond to look at.

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To the right, most of the other half showing a couple of the waterfalls.

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At the headwaters, we see a three-foot waterfall plus the fall on the bottom left.

John said his first try at the pond (not including the deep end) developed several leaks.  He also says he needs to clean the leaf skimmers constantly, or the automatic refill system starts overflowing and watering the golf course below.  Note that the top waterfall has a sounding area which enhances the sound from the falling water.

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A couple more of the falls.  By the way, you can hear all these falls very well.

If you enjoy the sound of falling water (and who doesn’t), you can enjoy this pond with your eyes closed.  You enjoy it much more with your eyes open -- even at 31 degrees.  Good rockwork.  Nice plants.  Fish (but not enough).  As you get down and examine all the details you realize just how much work went into this piece of art. 

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Some stone stairs to help you traverse the terrain.

Land plants.  Aquatic plants.  Bog plants.  You see them all when you look close enough.

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Here's a nice touch on part of the flagstones coming down the main stairs.

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You can see how the temp has affected his vegetation.  Still, his pond looks great. 

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Lots of twists and turns before the water flows into the second half.

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Water flows under this flagstone bridge where his colorful koi lurked at first.

Speaking of work, this flagstone bridge took four guys to muscle into position.  John says he can vouch for its heft, because he was one of the four guys.  He also had to tote one truckload of rocks from the front driveway to all these sites back here.

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Four feet of water enables John to over winter his koi out here.

Algae-free water in full sun takes some extra effort.  John uses Algae-Fix plus an enzyme that eats dead algae.  Plus, taking out all the leaves from the nearby trees gives him something to do in his spare time.

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Four koi (one littler blue guy above) and one black goldfish came out looking for food.

Only two baby fish (probably shubunkins) showed up this summer.  His koi probably aren’t mature enough to crank out their eggs in mass quantities yet.

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10,000 gallons of crystal clear water mean we'll be back this spring.

We expect to visit John’s backyard again in 2004.  By the way, he lives in Lake View on the way to Norwalk.  LA

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