Well, here's the latest. I put a regular well pump in the well and got water to flow. There's not much water there - it flowed for 9 minutes at first, and then yesterday I tried it again and it flowed for 15m+ before I cut it off (it was still pumping). Looks like about 2 gpm, so not worth the effort, but I'll find some use for it in the future.
Since the last update picture it has rained once. Some water accumulated, but I pumped it out again, and added bentonite to certain areas, and raked and packed and have it as ready as it will ever be. Just waiting for some rain. Also, I'm going to pump from the creek like I did last year. I will probably try a different type of pump - last year I used a deep well pump tilted at a 45 degree angle. It worked fine, but I ran it for about 3.5 months 24/7 and I burned it up. More about the pumps later. For people that haven't read this thread, I'll be pumping from a creek that is 75' below my pond and 300' away. I'm leaning toward a 2" gas trash pump, but do have power at the creek, so I'm open to suggestions...
The picture below shows some water I pumped in yesterday. Oh, one other thing, I have routed the water from the roof to the pond also - I connected the well hose and the run-off hose that you see in the bottom.
