Finishing The Water Feature

 Saturday, Mark and I managed to move the stone into place.  Origianlly, I was going to try to tie the stone to a long beam of wood and use either end as a lever to walk the stone into place.

When we tried to lift it, it became clear that the stone weighed too much for two men in their mid-fifties to move by themselves.

Mark quite reasonably pointed out that the stone was already on the wagon (the sides of which were being destroyed by all the levers I was using to try to wiggle it into place, and that we already had it on a long plank that we could use as a slide and let gravity do most of the work for us.

So, we pulled the wagon over the lawn (which left divots in the grass) and got the wagon and the stone ready for sliding.  With some careful maneuvering, and levering, we managed to get the stone in place on the center column of the fountain's basin.

 Nobody had fingers or toes or tails or paws crushed.  (Yes, I did have to relocate Smokey, who had to sniff where the stone was going to come to rest.)

Once it was upright, moving the stone was fairly easy.  I rotated it with the smooth, polished side facing south, on the theory that it would reflect sunlight.  I'm not entirely sure that it will, as we have not been around at the same time as bright, direct sunlight in the yard.

Then came the difficult task of snaking the water pump's hose up the hole drilled into the stone.  I'm going to guess the water in the basin wasn't too much warmer than 45F.  I could probably stand to have my hand in the water for about ten seconds before muttering half-enunciated oaths, whipping my hand out of the water, trying to dry it off, shake it, and simultaneously shove it under my armpit to try to warm it up, all the while cavorting around in a little tight circle.

Eventually, I fed most of the hose into the stone, and was ready to turn the pump on.  Water flowed over the stone, and Mark played a version "Time To Say Good-bye" he had queued up.  I fiddled around some with the setting on the ball valve regulating the flow through the stone in order to find the sweet spot where not too much water flows out and then splashes out of the basin.

"Go get some colored rocks," said Mark, who did not want to come with me.  So I went to the landscaping place and started looking for rocks to cover up the plastic cover over the basin.   After some casting about, I found the bin of turquoise colored "pebbles," and began... sorting them onto a cart.   It did occur to me as I was selecting rocks based on on more-polygonal/less-spherical, more darker-blue-or-green/less-pastel that possibly I was being anal-retentive about rock choice.  Eventually, I got some black accent pebbles (which were more pebble-like and less very-large-ice-cube-like).

I sort of had a problem in that I wasn't sure exactly how much rock to get:  too little and the tacky, industrial black plastic would show; too much, and I'd have to figure out a use for the extra.  Also--as Mark pointed out later, if I got too much I ran an increased risk of overloading the basin's cover and having everything collapse on top of the water pump.  I wound up getting some fractured granite scales as well, on the theory that the sharp shapes would be an artistic contrast to the rounded pebbles.

 About ninety minutes later... I was heading back home with a car full of rocks.

Because I wanted the rocks to look nice, and because I didn't want them to get too much dirt and mud into the basin's water, I washed the rocks when I got home.   The water out of the garden hose was only marginally warmer than the water in the fountain's basin, and after a few minutes of rubbing the stones free of dirt with a cloth, I settled for soaking them for a few minutes, then spraying them off.

At some point during all of this, it started sprinkling, and I got some tea.

I placed the rocks around the stone with a growing sense of having gotten carried away at the landscaping place.  Mark came out an mentioned the weight of the stones, and also expressed some surprise that I had gotten more than one color of rocks.  He thought I was going to do some sort of yin-yang pattern.  I had a vague notion of quartering the turquoise stones somehow, or edging them with the granite scales, but the effect in practice wasn't as cool as I thought it would be.

I ended up concentrating the black rocks beneath the polished face of the stone, as if they were the dark continuation of a waterfall streaming off of it.   I think the effect sort of works.

Looking at the finished product, I concluded that the fountain looks "elemental," and "zen," ... which means that I'll probably be fiddling with the stones for a while until I can get a look that's more cultivated.   Very likely, I'll remove a few stones so the feature looks less cluttered or like a landscaping truck dumped a bunch of pretty rocks out of a truck and more like the stones were placed on purpose.

The sound of the water falling through the rocks, however, is perfect.  The next step is wiring the house with some outside outlets so Mark will feel less anxious about electrical mishaps.