I am the proud owner of a new pond.
That is the good news. The bad news is it filled in the middle of the night in under 3 hours. I have never seen the creek run like that. The NWS shows we had 4" in 45 minutes. That is on top of 3" over 3 days. Here is where the creek crosses the fence above my pond:


Here is where it ran around the back side of the pond dam and crossed my neighbors fence:



I wonder if I am liable for rerouting the creek over mt neighbors land? :rolleyes:

Here are some more photos:

At what time was this 45 minutes occurring? Were you excited at the time? Worried?

I've never had four inches during any calender day since I've owned my farm in 8+ years.

Get Those FH in and ....enjoy the trip.

I was hiding in the closet during the first 2.5 inches while tennis ball size hail pounded the house, this lasted about 20 minutes. I was watching the NWS radar and they showed a tornado only 6 miles west moving straight for me. The radar showed a large circular spot with 75K' cloud tops surrounded by another circle of 70K' tops. The most violent looking and strangest weather I have ever seen. In my last look at the radar before heading for the closet, there were 7 tornado warnings and 15 severe storm warnings within 75 miles of me. I can't tell you how many storms I have ridden out telling everyone to stay calm it's not that bad. This storm I was afraid, very afraid. The storm let up for a few minutes and the last 1.5" of rain in about 15 more minutes. I watched with amazement thinking that the creek had to run. The whole night was filled with excitement one minute, fear the next. When it finally cleared I went down to the creek and could hear the rumble before I got there. I went to where the creek runs in the pond and it was only three feet from spillway level already. This was about 12:30 PM best I can remember. I watched for 5 minutes and it came up a foot. I went back and got a new battery for my 18 volt flashlight and went back. It was only about a foot from the spillway and started to get scared again. What was that raging torrent going to do to my property? Whey the creek finally crested it was at my barn/ shop door and was up to the door on my storeroom. I was knee deep in water at one point! I fell into bed about 5AM and woke up about 8 AM. I saw that the creek was barely running and no water was coming over my spillway. HUH? I went around to the far side of the dam and saw the second photo above. The creek running around the far side of the dam and flooding my neighbors field!

The water already looks much clearer now and I am very happy. More to come!

Very dramatic and exciting account. Keep it coming.

...could you imagine the adreneline rush if this all occurred while in the penthouse of one of Bruce's tower condo units! (I could easily see settin' up camp in the closet)
Well, you're here to tell the story...AND....you have found the silver lining in the...well, you know. Congrats, PFF...time to move the BBQ to the island and kick back in a chaise lounge.

Brettski- One thing you do right is to ask a lot of questions and dig for the answer. If you will look at the photos above you will see all that is left of my island. I have been looking carefully and have decided that the transit my contractor used was not set up on the level. One side of my dam is much higher than the other, The island that is suppose to be 2' out of the water is flooded and most of the water went the wrong way around the dam. :rolleyes:

My contractor will be here tomorrow to see what can be done. Be sure and check the transit when they build your dam. I love everything about the way my pond looks right now. I don't even care if I have a island. I would need to lower the water 18" to make it work. I will camp beside the pond if I have too. I may raise the level a little. "evil looking mad scientist graemlin"

uh-oh...lemons, lemons...what am I gonna do with lemons? I know!
C'mon, now. You musta known that you were gonna need/want a small wetland area for birds and spawning...right? Those trees won't be long for greenery, but sure will look good to the fish and wildlife.
If the dam is holding well after all is said and done, it would be a tuff decision to try to lower the principal to allow the island to re-emerge....adding makes more sense to me. Quite frankly, there is a good chance that those trees weren't gonna last real long anyway with the soil saturated at a depth 24" below grade. You are gonna look back at this and remember how good that lemonade really was.
Dude....you got yourself a pond!

Congrats, PFF. Maybe on your next rain dance you could skip a couple of steps.

Bruce, a week ago Friday and Friday night, I got 4.6 inches. It raised the water level of my main pond, the one closest to the house, about 18 inches. I went up Friday afternoon and found that we had another 3 inches which brought me up another 18 inches. It rained another inch that night and I got about an 8 inch rise but the water was still running in from an upstream small pond. I had to leave and get back home. I expect it will come up another 6 or so inches. I figure to still be about 3 or so ft. low. Bring on more rain. The ground is saturated so I'm getting pure runoff.

The one acre pond on my other place was about 6 inches from overflowing. It probably filled. Its not as deep as the one by the house.

One neat thing is that all of the clear water inflow appears to be sitting on the muddy water I had. I had about 4 inches of visibility and now, it looks like about 10 inches. I attribute it to filling above the level of the exposed banks.

I want to get back up there real bad but gotta put in some desk, telephone and internet time this week. Work sure interferes with my value system.

Hey Ponds, wait at least a month before stocking. Give the alkility time to leach from the soil. (Yeah, I know it's tough.) Do a water test with a pool test strip. It should be close enough to give you a general idea of what you are dealing with. Make a Sechi Disk to check visibility. And you despaired of ever needing one. I've been thinking about your mixed emotions. Cowering in sheer terror and wanting to run outside to see what is happening to the water levels.

:p

I checked my PH with my pool test kit when it was a puddle. It was 8.1 - 8.3

Can I stock some FH and CC now? Huh? I have been patient.

I am sure some greenies, bullheads and maybe even a gizzard shad came down with that run. I want to get some control pretty fast. How about 40 3-4# channel cats? Any advise would be very welcome.

I would toss them in. The worst thing they can do is die. The best thing is that they might make it. If the other fish are there and doing OK, I would throw in some FF and about 100 CC.

Ponds,

We must be in the same part of central Texas. We had the same storm hit our ranch Friday night. My brother, 6 year old nephew, and I watched the storm approach for over two hours. Our cabin is on a hill with a perfect view to the Northwest. Incredible lightning show! We were really excited as the massive storm approached. We really wanted some major water to fill the 20+ acre lake completed last summer. Our 3 acre tank was also 9' low and down to less than 1/3 acre. We were cheering the storm on. In fact, the night before I prayed for some of the storms that keep passing our place by, to actually hit the ranch. Becareful what you pray for!

The storm started with an absolute pounding of hail that chased us to the South porch. We watched the hail for only a few minutes when we heard the most incredible shreiking noise that chased us back into the cabin and under some very heavy bunkbeds. Well, tornados do not always sound like freight trains. In this case it was extremely high pitched. From under the bed, I saw the 26 gauge roof get ripped off our back porch. Then the whole North side of our cabin roof was ripped off. At one point, I saw our 200 lb plus propane cylinder in the air. I was beyond afraid as I was trying to hold the bunkbed down (ok, I was not thinking rational thoughts at the time). Our very stoutly constructed cabin and a grove of live oaks and old growth cedar within a 300' radius were shredded.


Once the roof was gone, then the rain began. I am guessing it was about 4 inches. It felt like more. After moving what we could to the "dry" side of the cabin, we went outside to checkout the rivers of flood water filling our tank and lake. The tank rose almost to the spillway. Incredibly, the lake only rose about 3 1/2 feet. But it doubled the surface area to about 8 to 9 acres.

It was quite a roller coaster ride. Really excited about all the pond filling water, but pretty depressed about the tornado damage.

Despite the little sleep the night before, we were at the builders mart in Lampassass Saturday morning. With significant help from family, we were able to get a new roof on by Sunday afternoon. We still have a lot of interior work to do replacing sheetrock and insulation, but we have a roof.

We are now ready for more rain. As we should get considerable runoff from any rainfall. Except, I will be praying for soft gentle rain showers now.

Ed B - We have a place close to Zephyr probably not too far from you. Man that was some storm. We had the hail and high winds but no tornados. You must be down close to Star. We heard reports on the radio of tornado down that way. Glad you guys made it through without injuries. I would imagine your underwear laundry bill might be a tad high. Sorry about the cabin, but at least you can replace those kind of things. Take care.

Heybud - We are SW of Evant. I guess I was watching the storm while it was over you. I drove back through Waco on Sunday. Boy, they really got hit hard!

Ed B - I am 18 miles west of heybud near Bangs. That was a close call and quite dramatic. Your story sound just like mine up until the tornado. Any cuts or bruses? I hope all the rain goes to you and heybud until my spillway gets fixed.

Heybud - when do we get some more pictures of your beautiful pond?

Ed B - I would love some pictures and descripions of your pond and lake project.

Ponds - Thakfully no one was hurt except for the sore backs from clean up and roof building. I will start a thread with pictures of the lake project.

It looks like we might have a similar weather situation brewing tonight:

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORT WORTH TX
353 PM CDT MON MAY 8 2006

.DISCUSSION...
EXTREME INSTABILITY RESIDES OVER THE WESTERN CWA WHERE ML CAPE OF
3000-4000 J/KG EXISTS AHEAD OF BROADLY DEFINED DRYLINE. CIN IS
CONSIDERABLY WEAKER JUST BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER OF THE CWA
WHERE STRONG HEATING AND 70+ DEWPOINTS ARE PRESENT. LACK OF ANY
STRONG CONVERGENCE OR UPPER LEVEL FORCING MAY KEEP A LID ON STORMS
ALL TOGETHER. HOWEVER...VISIBLE SATELLITE IS INDICATING THAT THE
CUMULUS IS BEGINNING TO CLUMP TOGETHER BETWEEN SWEETWATER AND SAN
ANGELO. WITH A COUPLE HOURS OF HEATING LEFT...WE FEEL THAT A
COUPLE SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORMS WILL LIKELY DEVELOP AND TRACK INTO
THE SOUTHWESTERN CWA. FAVORABLE SHEAR AND INSTABILITY MAY CAUSE
THE STORMS TO AMALGAMATE INTO A MCS OR CLUSTER OF STORMS AND
TRACK ACROSS THE SOUTHERN CWA THROUGH THE EVENING HOURS. HAVE THE
MENTION OF SEVERE AND HIGHEST POPS SOUTHWEST OF A BRECKENRIDGE TO
HILLSBORO TO ROCKDALE LINE.

Ed B - Duck and cover. I'm back in Midland so can't ride this with out with you. Take care.

Ed - That was a once every 50 years situation. I hope we don't ever see that again.

Dave or any expert: My pond is clearing fast. It is stained a dark brown not muddy at all. Looks like a really good fishing hole. I will take some more pictures tomorrow. I would guess I could see 4'. I called a local fish merchant and he told me he would need to order the catfish I need. He said there was a shortage of 1-4# catfish. This sounds really hokey to me. I can just see the fish on a truck from Arkansas to him and then handled and repackaged for me to haul 70 miles. Does this seem like a good way to buy fish?

I might specifically PM or email Lusk on that one. It sounds like a good time to truly know who your most trusted and reliable source of fish is. If you can develop a good relationship now it will pay benefits for years. Remember about stocking fatheads--if your source isn't reliable you could end up with tag-alongs.

Ponds, I expect the stained water is from dead leaves and other junk. It's called detrius by the big boys on the corner. I doubt that there is a problem but I would toss in some fatheads first and watch them. I agree 100% with Bruce about contacting Lusk prior to doing anything.

Think about it. A couple of days ago that water was a cloud. Now it is in your hole in the ground but hasn't had time to leach minerals from the soil. You need to be sure of the proper alkilinity and Ph before you ask a bunch of fish to call it home.

As Lusk says, Patience, Grasshoppa, Patience.