Blaze, Dash, Yard Art, Turtle Garden, and baby birds.

A peak into my back yard today.

Cool photos of beautiful backyard and pretty pups!



CB

Great pics, I especially like the hydrant and pump water falls.

Awesome back yard. I want to see more pics of the hydrant and what it's pouring into. The turtles are freaking cool

Great looking dogs! Beautiful backyard! Thanks for sharing

Lots of hydrants on craigslist and ebay. This one had multiple layers of various paint over rust. Stripping, wire wheel brushing, and painting was the most work on this project. Replaced some hardware with brass so it would not rust. Not pictured is the pond liner. Hole cut to drain into barrel with pump. Metal grating over barrel under rocks. Pump is on top of upside down milk crate so I have a sump. Pump sensor that turns off pump if water gets low. I rarely have to add water considering it is a 55 gallon barrel. Pump is also on a timer that turns off during late night. Aluminum plate cut to seal to bottom of hydrant with silicone gasket and a fitting for hose. Added wiring through plate for pond light with orange filter inside hydrant for a neat nightime effect. New vegetation is Watercress to keep the amount of water that splatters outside of the rocks to a minimum. Dogs love it.

The turtle garden pond and stream drains into an underground cistern made from a large sportsmans cooler with two return pumps to the spitting frog and old hand pump. Without a picture would never guess what I used for biological filter media in the cistern.



Gravel, small fossils, and small shells cover the grated drain/pvc pipe in the middle of the pool at the end of the stream to the underground cooler. One end is only covered by dirt and has a door so I can easily remove the dirt off the door to access the pumps if I need to. Wiring for everything from a breaker box is underground as well. The pond has Butterfly Koi that take care of any mosquitoes.

Love your back . Nice job on it.

Nice looking dogs. Love your turtles, too!

Awesome!!

Very nice John

Great pics! Love the Turtle Garden. May have to do something like that for old times sake. When I was a kid I collected turtles.....didn't matter what kind. If I could catch them they came home with me. My record was bringing home 5 Box Turtles in one day.

2x ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Wow, great space!

Nice pics.

I had 17 box turtles at one time when I was a kid.

I love it........awesome job on the whole space

X's 2, no doubt you enjoy doing all that, had to take some thought and elbow grease to get it done, but man, I'd rather have all that rather than a pool I bet you can sleep all day back there when the weather is nice!

thanks for sharing, lot of work

Great pics and a very cool backyard. Especially like the one of your dog in front of the fire hydrant

Very creative. Lots of fun things that you've done there. The squirrel feeder caught my eye, so did that amazing habitat that you created for your turtles and tortoise, which is what I'm guessing I saw in your pics. Is that right?

Love the dogs,I think there the smartest breed in the world.

Very nice. And I see you are well supervised during construction ...

The turtles are my wife's. She reminds me of Ellie May Clampett sometimes. They all come running to her when she goes into the turtle pen. There was a couple box turtles that had been living in an old gravel dog run on the side of the house for several years. She wanted a pen for them in the back yard. She also wanted a small pond water feature with fish. And she had seen an old fire plug landscaped into a garden somewhere and always wanted one of those too considering her dad was a firefighter as am I. With no real vision of how it would all turn out. I just picked a spot and started throwing it all together last year. Lots of repurposed materials. The Rocks were picked up at the hunting lease following hunts. I also built the habitat to be somewhat self sustainable. Most plants used were dug up for free and chosen because they are kinds that are also eaten by turtles/tortoises or attracts snails and bugs they also eat. It draws lots of volunteer critters as well. It is nice to sit outside with a drink and listen to the water. But I will admit when the frogs and toads start singing it can get way too loud.

I got that old motor as a free add on given to me when I bought a newer outboard from a listmember three or more years ago. Not knowing what to do with it and to get it out of the way, I threw together that boat motor bird feeder yard art in about 5 minutes with a cast net rope, and some old boat anchors I found while duck hunting and hung it all on a screw-in tree stand step I no longer use. The wife was not too sure about it at first, but it grew on her and she refuses to let me take it down now.

Thanks for the story behind the projects, that makes it even better!!!! Most of my projects are also wife generated.

Awesome back yard. Well played on everything. Great pics, thanks for sharing it with us.