Hi everyone-

I am continuing today with another image of Steph. This was shot with her standing on an area of the street that was brick and me standing on a brick wall looking down at her. The camera position was about 5 feet above her head.

She had several outfits to change into but because we were losing light fast she only changed once. But the light blue shirt she had on for most of the shoot worked well against the reds of a majority of the backgrounds.

I wanted to post a few additional items today as a bit of a catch up on a few things.

First is a recent image of Cree taken on our deck. It's not technically the best image I have ever taken but I love her gesture and expression. She's turning into quite the little character.

The pond is roughly 8' x11' in size although the actual water surface area is a bit smaller than that. It has three levels with the first being about 6" deep, the second about 18" and the third around 30".

The waterfall is 15' long and has 4 cascades or falls from the top basin to the lower falls. It also passes under the main sidewalk to our house.

We have 5 Show Koi at this point. They are about 4 inches long and seem to be adjusting well. Yesterday I added two tadpoles and 2 snails. There are a variety of plants added including cat tails and Lilly pads. There a few other plants that I can not remember the names of right now.

I have to do some finish work around the ponds perimeter yet. There a few rocks to be added, some out of the water plants to add, a couple of minor liner adjustments and trims. I have to get a large flat rock to place over the skimmer to hide that and also to serve as a place to stand while observing the pond.

Right now there is a bit of an algae problem which is mostly related to long periods of direct sunlight. One of the plants added today was a second Lilly pad plant to increase the amount of coverage of the water a bit.

The only other thing to do is finish some landscaping in larger area around the pond.

One of the best parts of the process is watching the wide variety of animals and insects that visit the pond each day. I am trying to photograph as many as I can and will post the images later.

It was alot of work but so far has been a lot of fun, a bit challenging but an overall great experience. I could sit near it for hours and listen to the rushing water and watch the visitors come and go.