Digging A Cottage Pond

Here is an update on the small cottage we are currently building Next to The Food Forest

The progress is slow. Unfortunately, a near by town/city had some severe hail storms recently. We were looking for roofers at the worst time. It took two and a half weeks to be able to get roofers to come. Lots of roofs were being repaired at the exact time when we were looking for roofers to put shingles on the cottage. Just bad timing.

It only took one day to put the shingles on with four or five guys working at the same time. The roofing process all seemed to go a lot faster than I had imagined in my head. I was kind of shocked that it only took one day to do the entire cottage even though it's only 630 square feet. I feel better now that the roof is on. Now we can move forward with the exterior part of the cottage.

The new cottage makes a great privacy barrier between the neighbor and the food forest

The windows have been ordered. Not sure when they will come in and get installed. We are doing a combination of rock and hardy board on the exterior, so working on the patterns and combinations took some time. The parts with hardy boards will have to pop out more so hardy boards don't sit next to the rocks with moisture and cause future rotting issues. This is being worked on right now.

Pond in Front of Cottage

The pond guy showed up a few days ago with his machinery. After he pushed the dirt around for two days, there is now the shape of a pond in front of the cottage. It's like magic. The pond guy had to go out of town for a few days and during these few days, we noticed water coming into the pond daily. My husband marked the water level with a stick. He had to move the stick daily. several days went by and we had a good amount of water at the bottom of the pond. It had to be pumped out when the pond guy came back so dirt can dry. I am really excited about the pond taking shape. It looks better, larger, and deeper than I had imagined in my head. It makes the cottage look so small.

The pond guy is not done yet. I will post more photos when the entire pond is done.

My camera is still broken. These photos are taken by my iphone camera. I am pleasantly surprised. Quality is not bad.