BRIDGING THE GAP

When I had first agreed to a pond, my wife bought one of those plastic pre-formed peanut-shaped things. Not only did I have to dig a hole for it, I also had to have an electrical outlet nearby. Needless to say, I wasn’t too happy when my wife pointed to a spot 90 feet from the house. This involved digging a 90-foot trench from the house to the pond and running electrical wiring through a steel pipe. After drilling a hole through mortar, I refused to go any further. Let someone else hook-up the electrical wiring to the conjunction box in our basement.

I’ve never had good luck with electricity. Once, when my father-in-law was alive and suffering from Parkinson’s, we decided to take a trip up to our cabin for some much needed R & R. Unfortunately, I had to install a new heating element to the water tank. I turned off the correct circuit breaker, and by the time I found my Phillips flat head screwdriver my father-in-law switched it back on. As soon as I put screwdriver to metal I couldn’t let go fast enough. I wanted to cuss him out but knew, in one of his brief moments of lucidity, that he realized what he had done. Another time I was installing fluorescent lights in our basement from an aluminum ladder. This time it was my fault, I switched off the wrong circuit breaker. The least I could’ve done was used a wooden ladder.

My wife tried to get an electrician to our house on several occasions for the pond hook-up. No one would come. Our neighbor across the street volunteered. At first he thought this involved digging the trench, installing the electrical outlets, and so on. But when he found out it was a simple connection he said, "Hell, I can do that." When we were in the basement I told him I’d turn off the main and he said not to bother. "Just pull me off the box if something happens." I stood back and watched. It wasn’t until later that I found out that he wasn’t even an electrician.

All of that was four years ago. Since then, we’ve gone bigger. Here’s the latest update with the bridge. Our other neighbor, Ken, constructed it. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to see the waterfall from my kitchen window, but the bridge is at just the right angle and has a low enough arc not to obstruct my view. Stepping outside onto my back deck, the sound of water pounding on rock greets me. The only problem I’m having is that the pump may be too large for the pond. I could always make the waterfall higher since I have all that electricity running the pump. Or I could start over, dig a larger pond.