New Pond

About a million years ago, (1993), my four children started digging a pond for me for Mother's Day.  It was on the side of the backyard at our home in Weddington.  Well, they dug and they dug and finally were able to make a hole about 6 ft by 8 ft.  Morgan was almost 15, David almost 13, Matt almost 11 and Katelyn almost 7.  They dug their hearts out in this hard clay.  Years before I had double dug my gardens.  It had looked like I was digging graves for the longest time, (1988). Neighbors laughed at me, but I come from the land of double dig. When the kids had done what they could with their muddy hole,   Jim stepped in and started the engineering phase of the pond.  We laid sand on the bottom, made a ledge for the liner to be held in with rocks and finished it up.  Added water and then some fish.  In 1994 we noticed a large fish, about 6"in the pond.  He was black, whereas my other fish were Walmart goldfish.  We figured a bird had dropped him in the pond, flying from the lake across the street from our house.  I love that pond, the kids and grandkids love that pond.  We spend alot of time feeding the fish, watching the birds and animals around it.  In 2008 the big black fish, who loved to jump up every once in awhile and splash around, jumped up and out of the pond.....  He couldn't shimmy his way back in and he died.  I was so unhappy, David came down to bury him.  We measured him and he was almost 20" long.  He was just a carp, but I saw him every day and fed him every day, so it was so hard for me to even walk out to the pond for a long time.  David had given me a couple of real koi around 2004, but they were still pretty small.  I guess the big guy ate most of the food.  They all started to grow larger and we had more and more babies. 
A week ago last Monday I came out of the back door and saw the Blue Heron around the pond.  I have chased him away before, and the 4 dogs usually keep him at bay.  The next day the pond started losing water, really losing water.  So I filled it up, checked the fountains.  (One time the squirrels chewed the hose to one of the water pipes and almost drained the pond)  Everything looked fine.  Except the pond kept losing water.  And the orange koi and the gray speckled one were gone.  Still have lot of black and orange babies, though.  But such is life, right? 
So we build a new pond, even bigger, maybe even build a waterfall?  John, Morgan's husband, came over Sunday and started ripping up the brick patio to build me a bigger pond.  We will finish that pond, move the fish over to it and then try to repair the original one.  Try to connect them in some way, I'll figure it out when the hole is dug.  So wish us luck, Jim said he is out of the pond business.( He does this Pontius Pilate thing with me all the time).  He has enough on his hands with the acre pond at Guards Farm in Shingle Hollow.  Talk about a leak....we have to have the entire dam rebuilt.  Talk about a money pit!
Riley is doing great, he gets his staples out on Thursday and he is back to running around and causing trouble.  We have great hope.  Living the life of Riley....