Lois's Pond

Water Lily in Bloom. "Even when a project isn't finished, there is beauty in the process if one just takes the time to notice it."--dbBrad

Lois is one of the many artists who participated in the Whidbey Island Arts Council, Open Studio Tour (Sept 25th and 26th). She presented beautiful photos with an impressionistic twist printed on canvas in steel frames, made by dbBrad.

Lois's pond, crystal clear before yesterday's work

Some of the canvas was sealed and hung outside on the metal screens. Her art and the rusty corrugated screens are quite a wonderful combination.

We also put some 'trim' on the yard. The landscaping was never supposed to be part of the house remodel we did last year but, due to groundwater, a landscape plan by Fran Abel, and improvements to how the house relates to the land, we added it to our scope of work.

Stream with liner to catch surface run off and roof water installed over french drain

The pond still needs a little work around the edges. We'll use rocks, plants and wood to shape the stream and hide the liner. 50-100 tour visitors are expected to stop by most studios which will be great exposure for all the artists, and for dbBrad.

Edge work happening along the stream which is also a filter for the Koi Pond

Here's how it all started. 
When we installed a French drain to mitigate a small stream which ran inside the perimeter of her crawl space all winter. Part of this was from surface water, but most of the water is from her own roof. When we tore off the old poison asphalt torch down roof and insulated a new, installed metal roof, we decided we could no longer dump this water onto the street (day light tight line is Island County standard water control) where it would just run down to the sound.

View from Deck off Lois's bedroom.

We also saw just how much water was generated from the roof so decided to make a pond. It was never intended to be a Koi pond but habitat for wildlife was our second objective to retention. Because of the minimal grade and the surface water we also made a collector stream that receives downspout water and yard water along the entire edge of the house.

Lois installed some color for the Studio Tour

Lois' pond has continued to evolve, but slowly. With very limited funds we've nursed the project along with an hour here and a few rocks there.

But a lot of liner was still showing so we spent a lovely half day in the warm rain of early fall rearranging rocks and plants we had on hand to 'pretty up' for the art tour. We didn't finish and don't have nearly enough plants or rock, but it will look looks much better for the art show and most of the liner is hidden/protected.