Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Cleaning out the Blue Rock Pool

Back in January 2008, we finished the French Drain by creating a holding pond for the rain water runoff, filling it with rock and topping it with Mexican Beach Rock, creating the Blue Rock Pool.

Overtime, dirt washed down the lawn on the West side of the house and into the Blue Rock Pool, particularly when we had really heavy rains.  In theory, the Rock Retaining Wall, and the terracing of the land in the Shallows should have fixed that (plus raising the level of the rock topping the upside of the pond).  So if that is true, then it is time to clean out the Blue Rock Pool.  It is buried in leaves and mud, and even has plants growing in the pool.



The first step is to remove the layer of blue rocks.


That gets us down to the underlying fill rock.



and that needs to be removed and washed and then put to the side while we continue to dig the fill rock out of the pond.



Washing the rocks was not as easy as I thought it would be.  Eventually I settled on a screen over two wheelbarrow tubs, with an additional PVC structure to support the screen.


We dug out, washed and set aside rocks on the sidewalk, the patio, and even behind the raised garden.  There was a lot of rock.



The pond is a rough trapezoid, 123 inches by 64 inches, by 84 inches by 60 inches.  It varies from 21 to 26 inches deep.  That makes it about 86 cubic feet or over 3 cubic yards.

But eventually, all the fill rock is washed and put back in place.



We then put down a layer of weed barrier and covered that with the Mexican blue rock.