Lilly Pond Make-Over

A common question we get is: "How old is  in the Lily pond?".  I don't know but it appears it was built shortly after the house was built.  Eggert and Rosa had a similar concrete lined pond in their yard on the farm and I found photographs of Jeanette standing next to the pond in the late 1920's.    I do know that Mom and Dad had the pond rebuilt when they moved in the house, in the late 1970's.

Linda and I wanted to 'spruce-up' the pond a little by adding a statue and a larger hand pump to serve as a fountain.  The water pump fountain we had was made from a small kitchen pump that friends gave us and our 'statue' was a plastic great horn owl that Mom bought to scare away the barn swallows that nested on the porch pillars (see picture below).  (The owl didn't work.)  The hand pump-fountain  worked fine, but was small and I wanted something a little larger and started looking for a full sized hand pump at antique stores.  A close friend of ours (Coe Leta) call us one day and said there was a hand pump at a farm sale near her home.  We went and ended up buying it for $50; a great price.  It was built in Beatrice, Nebraska and stood 4 feet tall.



Our Lilly Pond with the Owl and small Hand Pump Fountain (extreme right)

 During a trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico a couple of years ago, we stopped at a gift shop that had fountains and statues made of plastic resin that looked like brass.  They were very attractive.  When we got home I started to search and found a couple of import companies that featured them and we found a store in Nebraska City and another in Lincoln that sold them.   We mentioned that we were looking for something like this to Coe Leta and she said that she had seen them at "Market" in Las Vegas.  She goes there with her sister twice a year to buy new merchandise for her sister's gift shop.   She found the vendor got us a catalog and we both ended up ordering statues; ours was one of two boys playing 'leap frog'.  It was perfect. 

It arrived while we were on vacation in Colorado.  When we got back I got busy with the project.   I stripped the old paint off the hand pump.  It had originally been painted red and the surface retained some of this pigment along with a rust patina.  It looked pretty good.  I then soaked the water pipe in WS-40 for a couple of days and broke the pipe loose.  After a trip to the hardware store, I had all the parts necessary to attach a hose and make the pump spout water once again.  I attached the pump to the existing trough and submerged pump and "wha-laa;"  a new and larger fountain.

The statue probably weighs 40 pounds.  I drilled a couple of holes in the concrete island and mounted a couple of bolts to secure the statue in place.   Once the glue set, the statue was bolted down.

The Finished Lily Pond (Minus the Lilies)

When Coe Leta  arrived and we got a couple cups of coffee and sat on the porch listening to the sound of the water hitting the trough and the pond.   Everyone was smiling, it was a beautiful day and we were all pleased with the project.  Linda and Coe Leta both smiled at me and Coe Leta said; "Don't you think a lily pond should have a few lilies?"   She's right and that will be another project.