Thanks Mike
you know, I'm a stucco contractor by trade, and after stuccoing countless adobe style walls for many other people, and admiring how they looked when they were finished, I'm finally getting around to doing some for my own place.
It's not really much imagination on my part, just trying to copy things I've worked on before that worked, and avoid the things that didn't work so well.
You're right about it being a lot of work though, the worst part has been all the digging and moving all that soil around, it's all been done by hand too. I think we could have dug several dozen ponds by now, and yet, as it stands, I still haven't got the one dug out properly yet. It's a good thing I have two teenage boys, who aren't afraid of a little (or a lot of) hard work, to help, otherwise this project wouldn't be possible on my own.
I'd like to get the courtyard area usable for this summer, but if I get water in the pond before winter I think I'll be doing really good.