Farm Pond IV -- "Water" in the Pond

So, summer got away from us without getting granddaughters (or grandsons) to stay long enough to work on the railroad.  Did have a visit from a younger set of grandchildren who showed interest in the layout.

Decided to go ahead with water in pond, but not before starting to work on cattails and lily pads.

Used Woodland Scenics field grass for cattail stalks and tried acrylic paint, brown, to add cattail seed pod.  That didn't thicken things up enough, so went to white glue.  That had a tendency to form spherical beads.  Finally, went to Scenic Cement which is a bit thicker.  That sort of worked.  Then painted with brown acrylic paint.

Seed pods are looking OK, but decided more reeds were needed.  Tried a combination of sisal fibers from a rope, more light green field grass, and some harvest gold field grass.  Tried white glue to stick all of this together with one stalk of seed pod per bunch.

Will probably need to drill holes in "water" to plant. . . .

Also tried for the lily pads by punching 1/4", 3/16", and 1/8" holes in three shades of green paper. For the two larger sizes, also cut "V's" along the edge in one spot.  Usable results, I suppose.

In between all of this, the murky water, two-part epoxy was mixed and poured.  Stirring for 5 minutes, let sit for 5 minutes, and then stirring again for 5 minutes -- sort of a weary process.

Didn't take a lot of "water" to "fill" the pond.  A little disappointed that it's not more murky; also that it was hard to tell when painting the bottom what the depth was from one end to the other!  Recommended covering and curing for 24 hours.  Did not "wet" the shore too well, but a little grass and other foliage will probably help.

Lily pads, ducks/geese and fishermen placed, but not glued, yet.  Tried to add a yellow flower or two from other landscaping scenery, but didn't have a lot of luck at that.  Have also seen another approach to lily pads using white paper painted with a couple of shades of green and some yellow.  That gives some good variability as the colors are mixed on the paper.  Also, 1/4" is too big!!  These at the two smaller sizes.

Stay tuned for Farm Pond V when cattails are installed.