Scroll
down
There is a small water garden pond near the house. It was formed by excavating clay from the bed of a normally dry, local area drainage creek. The clay was used to form a dam that makes an irregularly shaped pond having about 425 sq ft of surface area and contains an estimated 7,000 gallons of water when full. Water comes from a well drawing water from a replenishing aquifer. Depending on the season from 2 to 6 hours of pumping a week is required to maintain an acceptable surface level. The gazebo as indicated in the title picture above is located nearby.
The Pond was formally home for large Koi, one about 16 inches long, many goldfish, black mollies and white Cloud Mountain minnows. The latter two usually considered tropicals, survived our mild South Texas winters for nearly a decade. Last year the large koi, the last of the breed, fell victim to a predator probably a blue heron or a water moccasin and I seized the occasion to drain the pond, deepen and clean it, and make necessary improvements on the dam and spillway. Also I hoped I might kill out the trash water Lillie plants that grew with uncontrolled vigor throughout the summer but seldom bloomed.
I completed the work this spring and the pictures displayed here are of the current facility. Despite the several months that it remained essentially dry, the water lilies reappeared within a week after the first filling. Every week it is necessary that I pull the new crops. I'm still trying, but I fear it may be a loosing battle.
Also in deference to the many hungry creatures prowling this rural country, I have decided to forgo expensive fish. I stocked the pond in early May with 100 small feeder gold fish (purchased from a San Antonio tropical fish store) and 30 mollies. I note the Goldfish are gradually disappearing again the victim of frogs, snakes, and who knows what else. Now their population is down to about 40, but they have grown from their initial 3/4 inch to the 3 to 4 inches range. I will soon add another 100 feeder goldfish. The mollies are going strong with the original 30 now numbering several hundred.
The gazebo is a five cycle geodesic dome that serves as my summer office and occasionally as a party house.. This floor outline is pentagon shaped. As illustrated in the picture, the 10 equilateral triangular shaped, open sides alternately slant in, then out with respect to the horizontal.
The structural frame was assembled in about one hour using eleven stamped steel star shaped metal plates to bolt together the 25 equal length 2 X 4 's that form the basic frame. One 8 inch 3/8 inch stove bolts at each end connects the 2 X 4 struts. I later added another 2 X 4 on each course making the support structure a 4 X 4 equivalent. The detailed framing of the walls and roof took much more time than the initial one hour required for the core structure. I used standard 8 foot length 2 X 4's which results in a pentagon about 12 feet across. .
The two pictures below show the interior of the gazebo room. A ceiling fan is installed inside the dome at the center of the room. On hot summer days this fan circulates air either up or down through a standard wind turbine roof ventilator. This assures a cooling breeze at all times during the summer. At the center is a circular table with a 30 inch top. I also have a 48 inch circular top that I can tack on temporarily permitting as many as six people to sit around it. There is another smaller work table in the North end. This is pictured in the picture at the lower right . A telephone extension runs underground from the house enabling me to connect my notebook computer to the Internet. To shield the computer screen from the low afternoon sun I covered two of the wall sections with the blue plastic.
Some tend to be critical of the art deco style resulting from the geometric shaped (triangles and circles) trim and the bright colors. I can not deny that this does make strong contrast with the background landscape and seasonal greens and/or warm browns that characterize and dominate the otherwise pristine landscape.
Deluge
The summer of 2001 has been as usual a dry one. An uncommon weather pattern changed that the last week in August. Beginning Sunday, August 26 we entered a rain pattern. Here at my place in Southern Guadalupe county it began slowly with a small shower Sunday afternoon and an occasional showers Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday I went to San Antonio to attend a National Park event that included a speech by President Bush at the Mission San Jose. I went through heavy rain as I entered San Antonio and while the Presidential party was well protected the attendants emerged at best slightly damp. In Guadalupe county when I returned Wednesday evening, I doubt that my place had received a total of a half inch since it began on Sunday.
On Thursday morning I was working in my office with the curtains drawn until noon when I went outside to find we were in a real downpour. I am high on a hill and in no danger of destructive flood, but so help me there was a inch deep stream of water everywhere racing down hill. The rain was really coming down. Under an umbrella I sloshed with my camera to the small pond to take the pictures shown below. Based on my visual comparison between the spillway discharge at a measured 10 gallons per minutes, I am confident the discharge was at least 100 gal per minute and quite likely considerably more. Here are the pictures.
