Catch up….
Week beginning 5th August Serious production began to make 90 rain catcher units. Four different sizes of plastic funnels where used to make 6 different unit designs, one of which was later ditched.
Each size of funnel had a slightly different fixing system, dictated by the weight of the funnel and the position they would be in on the slope around the pond, i.e. how high the grass was.
The 22cm funnels being the heaviest are set onto rigid plastic nozzles, which when installed sit low to the ground.
The medium sized funnels were fixed onto irrigation spikes, elevating the units approximately 50cm above ground, i.e. above the grasses.
The smaller 7cm funnels provided me with the most light weight & flexible units enabling me to make more delicate and flexible units low to the ground.
Week beginning 12th August
Friends Judy & Pat arrived from the U.S for a holiday and after a day recovering from jet lag; they quickly got sucked into the production line along with Holly & Bryony.
We spent days cutting copious lengths of micro piping, connecting the piping to the funnels, fixing valves to the piping and sealing funnels to bases. With friends to help the production line soon became less stressful and more enjoyable with much laughter & music care of Pats guitar playing. Thank you.
Week beginning 19th August
Installation: many issues predictably arose
How to make the larger dimension pipe stay in the surface of the water?
How to install the vertical pipe elements when the pond is too deep to safely wade out?
How to get the funnels to level up when the ground is uneven and stony?
At this stage the planning on paper is left behind and it’s down to trial & error, patience and as much help from friends as possible.
Week beginning 26th August
Relays of more boat people paddled me out to continue to install the hoop system to hold the pipe up above the surface of the pond and install the vertical tubes. High winds nearly everyday making timing and padding important so we didn’t knock over what we had already installed.
Leveling & more leveling of funnels continued…….
Week beginning the 1st of September
Early on the 1st September I set about checking that the system worked. Throughout the opening day I gradually poured 50 litres of rainwater into the funnels to start the flow off, as we had had no rain in the last 4 days. Gradually I began opening the valves to let the water flow down the piping to test the system……. Water & gravity combining to make the installation come to life.
Ironically after the wettest summer in decades the rain has stopped falling, just as ‘rain harvester’ is ready to capture and funnel the precipitation along my network of piping. So for now the sequences of vertical reservoir tubes wait to be filled, but I am confident they will be soon!
Week beginning the 9th September
High daytime temperatures and no rain so far, the result being the initial water in the funnels has flowed into the first few vertical tubes and the remaining water has evaporated leaving crystallized water dye in the funnels were the valves were left open. One line of funnels had the valves closed so they have retained some water.
In the early hours of the 14th of September 1mm of rain fell, not enough yet to fill the funnels……
How did you put the houes in the pond?
Comment by Sussun — September 25, 2007 @ 9:57 am
How did you get the houes in the pond? from Michael
Comment by Sussun — September 25, 2007 @ 10:02 am
How douse the plastic flot in the water from rachel
Comment by karen — September 25, 2007 @ 10:03 am
Dear Susen
How deep is kielder water and how did you stick the houses in
the pond. I loved going to see the ponds at donkleywood I
liked yours the best because it’s like kielder water and how how
long did it take to fill the hole of the kielder dam and how
many houses are undereniethe kielder water I would like to see what it was like what it looked like undernieth the water.cheres
yours sencirerly Dominic Rapier
Comment by Dominic Rapier — September 25, 2007 @ 11:12 am
to susan
how much houses are under the dam?
Comment by josh cowell — September 25, 2007 @ 11:13 am
Dear Susan
Witch pond is the deepest and how deep is it?where did you get the art work iders from.
How long did it take to bild all the ponds?My favret pond at donklywood was the pond
with the houses sinking.
From ross
Comment by Ross — September 25, 2007 @ 11:15 am
TO susan
I liked the monoply houses the best, how many houses did get?
they where realy good.
Comment by Megan — September 25, 2007 @ 11:16 am
To Julie livsey.
Wich pond is the deepest?
I liked drift the best because of all the grass
ilands.
Comment by Beth — September 25, 2007 @ 11:16 am
To Karen
How long did it take to make?
Was it relly very hard to make?
I liked the littoral zone because it is like a sun flower.
Comment by sophie banks — September 25, 2007 @ 11:17 am
To Julia
Did the water go down the tube and into the lake?
Comment by Jeffrey — September 25, 2007 @ 11:43 am
Dear karen
Why is your design so diffcilt?
Comment by josh buchanan — September 25, 2007 @ 11:44 am
To julie
Was it hard to make the paper mache balls?
Comment by Grace Turner — September 25, 2007 @ 11:45 am
To Julia
haw did you put the houses at the bottum of the water.
Comment by Adam shane — September 25, 2007 @ 11:45 am
To susan Grant how did you make the houses?
Comment by Josh — September 25, 2007 @ 11:47 am
TO KAREN
WASIT HARD TO MAKE?
Comment by connor cavens — September 25, 2007 @ 11:48 am
Dear julie
How did you grow the
grass?
Comment by neill — September 25, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
If the blue water goes into the pond does it affect the pond life
Comment by ryan — September 27, 2007 @ 10:17 am
why did you but the balls in squares and not other shapes?
Comment by Ryan — September 27, 2007 @ 10:22 am
How did the ponds get there?
Comment by Kirsty — September 27, 2007 @ 10:24 am
What is the smallest animal in the pond?
Comment by Ben — September 28, 2007 @ 11:34 am
What are the ropes doing in the trees?
Comment by Megan — September 28, 2007 @ 11:36 am
Why did Karen use plastic shapes in the pond?
Comment by Emily — September 28, 2007 @ 11:37 am
Why were you in a boat?
Comment by Daniel — September 28, 2007 @ 11:38 am
Hello again everyone from Bellingham, West Woodburn and Wark First Schools!
In answer to your questions:
Michael & co: - To get the houses in the water I attached each house to a different length of metal rod (usually used for welding metal together). I then stuck the rods into the bottom of the pond, going in wearing waders and a wet suit. It was very cold and windy but I am a hardy Scot so am used to ice-cold conditions
Dominic Rapier - Kielder Water is 170 ft deep. It holds 200 billion litres, making it the largest reservoir in the United Kingdom by capacity (Rutland Water is the largest by surface area). Kielder Water has a 27½ mile shoreline if you go all the way round. It took 1.5 years for the reservoir to fill up, which was a much shorter time than they’d expected. They dismantled all (or most - I have never been able to find out which!) of the houses before they flooded the valley.
Josh Cowell - There were just over 40 houses flooded by the dam.
Megan - There are approximately 1,500 houses in the pond.
Josh - I made extra houses by making a rubber mould from real Monopoly hotels (they are bigger than the houses and I like the red colour) and then poured hot liquid wax into the mould before leaving them to set.
Thanks for all your questions!
Susan
Comment by Susan — October 9, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
Sorry its taken me so long to answer your questions, I hope this helps:
Ben
Probably that smallest living thing in the pond will be an amoeba (or a bacteria).
There are probably viruses as hosts on the bacteria (like a flea lives on a dog) but scientists can’t agree whether they are really alive!!
(Because although they ‘reproduce’ (make baby viruses), they can ‘go to sleep’ for a very long time, and then come alive - like a person sleeping for 400 years and then sitting up one day.
So the amoeba or bacteria are probably the smallest. If you look at a single strand of your hair and imagine something 200 times thinner than that… that’s about how big.
Emily and Rachel
There are a number of reasons I used plastic:
1. It’s see-through like a lot of tiny living things are
2. It floats well because it’s lighter than water and water can’t get inside it and sink it
3. I’ve used plastics a lot before so I know what I can do with them
4. I want to start using more re-cycled plastic in my artwork as it’s better for the environment: so that’s why I made the bacterial-mats out of old bubble-wrap and shredded up old plastic bags
Josh and Connor
I’m guessing you are asking if the big ‘diatom’ shapes were hard to make or a ‘difficult’ design.
And they were! My first attempts didn’t work very well at all, but I knew I wanted to use that shape (Asterionella formosa) and once I started to use a steel rod frame (under the water, so you don’t really see it), it made the plastic heavy enough not to blow away, and fixed it so it would always keep it’s shape.
Shannon and Sophie
We started thinking about the project in 2003 so you could say it took 4
years to make!
We knew we had the funding (money we needed) to make it happen by April this
year, so that’s when we started really working on ideas:
Julia started ordering her funnels
Julie started growing the grass shapes
And I (Karen) contacted Newcastle University to see if they could come and
find out what was living in the ponds that I couldn’t see.
So it’s a long process
Comment by Karen — October 15, 2007 @ 10:21 pm