The old fountain that was here when we moved in had sprung a leak.  Rather than fix it, we decided to rip it out and  put in a new pond.  It took Bruce about a month's worth of weekends to do the job.  First he tore out the old fountain.  Then he started digging.  We wanted a pond that was deep enough for the fish to stay in it all winter long.  That meant that it had to be three to four feet deep.  Once the digging was done, we put in a layer of felt  and then the rubber pond liner.  Next came the rocks and plants and then finally the fish had a new home.  While Bruce was working on the pond, Lisa was removing all of the river rock that surrounded the old fountain.   It wasn't a glamorous job, but it was necessary to remove the rocks so that we could plant grass.

The stairs going up to the back yard had also reached the end of their useful life.  The railroad ties that they were made out of were rotting from the inside out.  We decided that we had better replace them before someone fell through one and got hurt.  Bruce's job was removing all of the old railroad ties.  Some of them were in good enough shape to be reused and he carted them off and recycled them in other parts of the yard.  Once the railroad ties were removed, Lisa prepared the area and then installed the large pavers to make new steps.