If you have a dog that hates water, you will see him swimming in it.

If you need rocks, they will ALL disappear overnight.

If you have water and frogs you will have a snake.
If you have a wife afraid of snakes you will have to do anything that involves reaching into said pond after that, lol. (I am the wife, lol)

If you buy expensive fish they will become sashimi for a heron.

If children visit there will be foreign objects in the pond.

The day you host a BBQ nothing of significance will be blooming.

Waterfall and streams will find the path of least resistance, and the basement stairwell even if it is uphill.

Stalkers like me will post once in a while...thanks for all your helpful tips my ponding friends.

you guys are SO funny! i hope you have more. min

If you have a son, no matter how old he is (26!), he will skip stones into your pond even though you've told him that we do NOT have stones/rocks in the bottom of ours!

If you finally get rid of the pea soup algae in your pond, you will get a great case of string algae a few weeks later!

If you run the pump through the winter it will back up and drain the pond on the coldest day of the year, probably in the middle of a howling blizzard.

when you race back with your camera, the interesting or beautiful critter will have flown, crawled, swum or slithered away.

or if it by great luck it is still there, your camera battery will have died.

If you put the hose in the pond to fill it and walk away, you will not remember that it is running until the middle of the night.

Oh! Pat C, how true!!!!!

If you remove a tree close to your pond because of the leaves it deposits in your pond, you will find out how many leave and seed pods it kept from going into your pond.

When you've topped up the water level to a satisfactory height, a rainstorm will come by during the night and raise the level that much more, potentially "drowning" your lily blossoms in the process.

When you attempt to trim that stem that is *just* within reach, you'll slip and trim the perfectly fine stem(s) around it instead.

When you've been informed the 'back button' won't work, it seems to be the only button that you can click even though you didn't really use it previously!

When you're carefully positioning a plant just at your maximum reach in the pond it will tip gently & roll down into a deeper area

riverdown- you are so right! that plant pot that is rolling deeper into the pond will also spill gravel and dirt into the nice clear water as it goes down.

Rocks delicately placed on the edge of the pond WILL fall in. (especially if it is at the deep end of the pond)

Can of fish food will be forgotten and left out in the rain.

The "beautiful" plant will become aggressive and overpower more delicate plants AND become impossible to erradicate.

Fish net will rot out and give way just when you need it most.

When you reach the zen stage of blissful calm and quiet in your garden, your neighbor WILL start his leafblower.

Your most expensive tool WILL be the one that is lost.

Murphy rules.
Murphy was an optimist.
My pond is a work in progress, forever.
Sandy

"Your most expensive tool WILL be the one that is lost."

Opposite: If you buy a cheap tool in will still be around after you die.

I'd like to add a few.

Your Favorite Tool will be the ONE that YOU can't find.

When building your pond, it WILL rain a downpour or two before you can get the liner in. maybe more than once...this one I know unhappily from experience.

You WILL have a fight or two, with your DH or significant other while building the POND!

Hi, I'm also a lurker here, but I'd like to add some.

The night before the first and only bud so far on your night-blooming water lily that you've waited all summer to bloom is going to open, the neighborhood raccoons will decide to play in your pond and manage to rip off only the bud while leaving everything else intact.

Your second night-blooming water lily bud will decide to poke its head out of the water in the middle of the worst Santa Ana winds of the year. After a few minutes of 100 degree 40 mph winds and negative 20 percent humidity, you have a nice, crispy dried flower bud.

Your cat will find your bag of fish food and tear it open in the middle of the night, leaving you with a very stuffed cat and a nice mess to clean up when you wake up.

the only way i avoided a fight with my dh was to say "go away and i'll let you know when the pond is done" and he was happy to comply. i have to admit i finally needed his help getting the huge heavy liner put in, and there were a few stress-words while doing that, but all in all it was the most peaceful project ever completed on our property. lol

another murphy: if you really want to complete a project all by yourself in secret, some little unexpected thing will give you away, like the receipt for the expensive pond liner unintentionally left on the car seat.

Ongoing Murphys- he NEVER gives up!

---if you shade your pond with a little umbrella on a very still hot day in the summer, and then go away somewhere, a wind will come up and knock the umbrella into your pond or blow it into your favorite flower bed, flattening all the blooms.

---if you prop your hose so that it waters a particular shrub, as soon as you move out of sight it will shift a little so that it waters a sidewalk or driveway.

min

and
----if you cut your liner, you will wish you had done it differently before you have time to lay your utility knife down
---- if you raise an edge of your stream liner to fix an overflow, it will be overflowing somewhere else the next morning

I wish all these posts were was all humor instead of so much grim reality! Does as much good to laugh as it does to cry --- thanx for the laughs!!

You are so right, ponderpaul. As posted above, Murphy Rules!

If you have 'designed' the perfect pond a specific size, later you will wish you had doubled the size. I do, but I shall someday build another one. Already have it in my head, just need to ask my checkbook for permission. LOL.

Wise man say, "If you invite guy named Murphly over to see your pond, he'll dlink all your bleer"!
"Confucius"

if you cut the liner anywhere for any reason, or dont even cut it at all, IT WILL LEAK

hardin
picked-up my larger liner last week in Shawnee. Just waiting for some moisture and cooler.
OH Murphy -- If you need to change something, current conditions are not right

Okay. A new one. If you have lotsa rain and a high water table your pump box will flood and your pumps will be sitting in water. If you use quilt batting near an external pump it may (and in my case did) find its way into the pump and wind itself around the pump.

If you have a pond you will spend many hours maintaining the plants, fish, liner, pumps whatever but you will also spend many hours sitting by the pond enjoying the sound of the waterfall and the antics of your pond inhabitants including the happy dance. Patti

Oh Pat!!! : I just came outdoors only to see pond water ( & ? baby fish, etc.) running all over the lawn. Yep, I put the hose in the pond to add 'a bit of water' & just stepped away 'for a second' to pull some weeds ....!!! But it does seem 'forever' to add the water if I'm standing there watching & wasting good time ...!! ha

Good to hear I am not the only one who continues to do this ...!

LMAO! Horton, your a hoot! Not real funny but my thought, the more you mess around with your pond the more trouble you will have with it!

A year later Murphy is STILL hanging around in my garden;

---If you quickly hide a favorite took from the little grandchildren, you will never find it again.
---If you give up and order another, you will uncover the first one when you aren't even looking for it anymore.

---If you have a pond fish, Murphy will make sure that its the one that disappears.

Is he still making trouble at your place? Min

of course i meant TOOL not 'took'. min

Yeah, Min:

If the neighbor isn't feeding his pet bunny your compassionate, caring BF will cut down all the morning glories and most of the sunflowers just to feed it. How sweet of him :-/

1. The koi that decides to leap out, will be your favorite.

2. The torrential rains will start the day you start to dig.

3. The power outage will occur when you are on vacation, on the hottest or coldest day of the year.

I have another one... new today:

The day you are going to show off your pond and skippy filter to another ponder, you have a massive thunder/hailstorm that smashes lovely flowers and your stream developes a leak so the pond is about 8" down.

The one and only time you slip and fall while in the pond, is the one and only time you are wearing the hearing aid that cost more than the pond itself.

(got lucky and managed to keep the right ear mostly dry. Now I ALWAYS take it off.)

LOL! And to add the corollary to Murphy's Law, Murphy was an optimist!

...if any nearby unfenced neighbor adopts a new labrador puppy, it will surely come over to happily thrash around in your pond.
aaargh!

min3; no, no, its a schnauzer pup.

ponderpaul- sounds like you have also had some experience with pond invasion. your own dog? min

min3; Neighbor's -- crawled through a gape in the gate.

another law; If your neighbors have a pet of any kind, it will find its way to your pond!