Moss was collected from a friend’s yarn to cover forty feet of the bank,
up to where the mound once was.
One stormy night, a five-foot tall, ten foot wide,
cone shaped mound of dirt was all washed away.

Backing up a little, this is a view from my neighbor’s yard.

Looking this way, you can see another neighbors’ Japanese Garden.

This is a closer look.

I got some bushes from another friend to put in the back yard.

Since the force of the water, during the storm, is so great
I bought some rocks to protect the mound when I replaced it.
They were as big as I felt that my son and I could roll
but they were still too small. They looked big in the rock yard
but looked small once they were in the stream.

I could not have a rock this size moved with heavy equipment
because of it’s proximity to the soft banks of the stream
so I had to make this one from concrete and wire mess.

That rock is on the lower right corner of the mound at the water line
below the branches of the weeping willow tree that I planted in the mound.
This area is just about finished. I have a little more moss
to add at the top of the mound and then simply wait
for the Japanese Yew bushes to fill in enough to trim properly.
I have to trim away a lot of the over growth so that there
isn’t anything but moss, ferns and a few scrupled Junipers.

….Next, is the water fall.

First, I had to do lots of excavation. For a while, it looked like an archeological dig sight.
I had to lower the water level by channeling it to the left, in this picture.
This allowed me to have fairly dry ground to work from on the right.
You can see the beginnings of a concrete footer on the right.

Since the stream could not be damned long enough to complete
even the smallest phase of the projects,
I had to channel the water, from one side to the other many times.

Here, from another angle, you can see the footer
and wire mesh that was used to form a stem wall .

When I thought that I may have finish a particular phase,
I moved trenches, raising the water level temporarily
to see if things worked out as I planned it before moving on.

As you can see, there is a division of the stream.
I build a berm with dirt and a blue tarp to channel the water
from the right side to the left. You can also see
the concrete top layer that I added on the right.

I added a layer of colored concrete that looked like icings on a cake
then through on rocks followed by sand and then walked on it
to force it all into the top layer.

Here, I mocked up the water fall before moving the rocks away
and lowered the water level once again.

Of course, it is very important that you ….well, be careful
when moving large rocks. I ran across this 2 footer
coiled beneath a large flat rock that I moved but it was cold
and it just tried to squeeze into a crack. I jumped back
and moved up the bank to get the shovel. When I moved the rock
some more with the implement, I could not find the snake again.
A week later, we found the snake under another big rock.
This time, after we cut off its slow retreat to the left and then to the right,
the snake sped around us and escaped down the stream.

Here is still another out mock up. I feel that I am getting closer
to the look that I am striving for. Now, I will have to cement the rocks in place,
add the topper pieces and put moss in the crevices to make it look more natural.
Then I need to bring in more real, more rounded rocks, placing them around the pond
to finish off the area.

We pulled the first rock with the car and roled it down the hill.

We had to be careful not to let it crash into what we already had.

That rock was too heavy to get it right where I wanted it.

We could drag this rock to the stream but could not get in place either. I will have to get more help to finish the placement.

I had to Create a design that would allow for storms.

So Far, So good.

This is the stream a the morning fog.