Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations New Rad Pond

Rad, It looks like the Peter Principal is at work at your place. Have some fun in Hong Kong, drink some Asahi for me. Better luck when you get back.

Well, I had a first today!

The contractor showed day before yesterday and it looks like we are back on his to do list.

The trucks going up and down the road have turned the hardpan surface in to a fine 3 inch layer of dust, so we asked the track hoe guy if they had a water truck he said "no problem" and proceeded to the small pond we found on the property when we were clearing it and began dipping buckets full of water on the road. When a truck showed up he dumped several buckets of water in the bed and the truck drove slowly up the road, wetting it down.


Oh, the first, fishing with a track hoe, we caught 3 catfish in the first two buckets and two more from the truck. Probably not to economical but it was productive and the kids had a blast.

fish on!

glad to see it back on track..maybe?

keep up the reports rad, thanks,

That sounds like big time catfish grabbin. What size cats came out of that mini-pond?

ewest,
They are mini, my neighbors have been fishing the hole for quite a few years, so what ever is big enough to swallow a hook is dinner.

Well, the digger finished last week and we ran electricity to the property and should start the water system pipelines this week. I have the parts, just waiting on the labor crew. It will be the same crew that did the electricity, but I paid them for that and need to wait until it has been spent.

We moved 330 trucks of dirt, that accounts for about ¾ of an acre 6 feet deep, the other 3 feet we spread around filling in low spots. All of that dirt and I still had to bring in 10 truck loads of clay/rock mixture to build a road. With all of the rain we were having the ground became very soft and the trucks kept getting stuck.

With a little over a third of the pond dug we had 7’ of water, which had to be pumped down to 3’, man did I hate to see all of that water go.

We have also started planting the banks and watering by hand. The city water company is on tap to install a main to our location but we aren’t sure when, plus there is a rule that you need an address before they will hook us up. For an address, house plans need to be approved by the sub-district office then taken to the district office to the Address Guru. On the other property, when we needed electricity, we just gave the Guru a fresh fish and went home all addressed up, the house approval came several months later. So we will have to explore that one a little more.

The only bad part, for now, is the weather, the wind patterns are already shifting to the first monsoon. Weather from that side, Andaman Sea, should not happen until mid May of a little later. That coupled with the monsoon from the gulf side lasting until a week and a half ago, usually finishes in late December or early January, leaves very little dry time for establishing ground cover on the banks.

The picture is another of my attempts at panoramic shots.

Rad, thanks for sharing this adventure. I'm fascinated with your journey and see that beuracracy is universal.

How does one say "baksheesh" (Arabic for bribe) in Thai?

congrats on the progress rad. i'm curious as to the overall square design......look easy to seine...and might double as a lap pool

DD1, we have been succesful with all of the bureaucrats, some were more difficult than others, but eventually they all come around. As I said we usually give them fish, some we have over for lunch, some we let fish, for some we buy perfume from Hong Kong, it varies.
Theo, I can't spell it in Thai but is called "tea money" which is meant to sound like a very small amount so as to sound like a thank you, as opposed to, if you don't pay you don't get. However the later is always true.

Dave, pond shape is based on land shape, trying to get the most water out of the size, we are going to try to break up the lines with the shoal and by pushing one of the houses over the water's edge. I am going to try to keep the foliage at a lower height than the first pond, hoping to keep a more wide open look. I, just today, found a mangrove tree for sale and will plant a couple of them on the shoal.

She be comin' along, Rad. I remember you once asked me where the swim-up bar was going to be located. So...?

Hang on, it is in the plan, let me stabilize the banks, then we will work on the bar. The biggest obstacle is shade, without it a cold beer is but a fleeting memory...

Here are a couple of catch up stories, snakes and birds.

A couple of days ago I was laying out the lines for the irrigation system when I noticed one of my dogs chewing on something. I wandered over to take a look and saw it was an egg. Something odd about it but I was busy and went on with what I was doing. The next day the crew showed up to start the dig and I watched as one of the guys was cracking open an egg similar to the one the dog was chewing on; what had been odd was that the egg shell was leathery and I had been thinking bird, so I asked why he was using sticks to open the egg and he pried the occupant out and showed it to me, a cobra. There were a dozen eggs, all near hatching. Had it not of been for an accidental fire burning some brush that was covering the nest we would never have know. Still don’t know where mom and pop are.

Yesterday I was walking out of the house heading for the new pond when I spy a dozen cormorants circling towards me. They have been gone for several months and it was the first I had seen of them. As they approached my old pond they split into pairs and headed to their old haunts, I am guessing here, the two assigned to pillage the drainage ditches that ar now part of the new pond circled lower and just brushed the tree tops as they prepared for their landing, they flared their tail feathers and entered a stall web feet forward in preparation for landing, when all of the sudden, abort, abort, only water, no place to land. They are able to save it, pull up and head to parts unknown. Today same dozen, but none over fly the new pond. I am taking that as a good sign.

May Nag and Nagina move on to a better nesting site as well.

Where is Riki when you need hin?

I sure hope not to Rad's other pond for a drink or worse to his house for a cool place to rest.

Ok!
Hit full pond yesterday. Rain has stopped at least for now and the crew is moving at full speed getting the building part of the project under way. The utility room is the one in the picture, it will start out as a supply storage place and finish as a community room. I will add an outdoor kitchen and 1/2 bath later.
It is a lot more fun when stuff is getting done.

More pictures and more details! C'mon, Rad...you're holdin' back.

I tried to do my best FattyMcButterpants, photo shoot, portraying the pond in it's best light, filtered by the exotic whispering palms, beautiful blue skies with the fluffy white cloud background, but I see now that that is not enough, ok tomorrow I will shoot the dirt, more to follow.

Thanks for the pics - more would be good. That way we can join in and experience a virtual build.

These are the work crews double cab duelies, typical construction workers vehicle

Rebar fabrication shop

Crew building column forms

Column forms in the background

Pile, little over 8" square an 16' long

End of pile that was hand chiseled off 16" below grade. Then a 16x16x16" box is poured and that is what supports the column, the fan belts are used to drag them around

Two 6" over flow pipes, I have els that allow for an increase of up to 9 additional inches of water height.

Minor erosion

Major erosion

Looking back with the planted shoal in the foreground

Wow...the stuff we take for granted.
Let me get this right...
They drill (or dig?) a hole in the ground and set the 8 x 8 concrete piles in as the footing for the columns that will be poured on top the them? If yes, how do they tie the pile to the column? (ie; there is usually rebar projecting from the previous structure that the next one is poured around to tie them together). You lost me on the engineering wisdom for the 16 x 16 x 16 box. How deep are the piles set? (no worries for frost heave me thinks).
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Pond looks great. Shangri-la #2 in the making!

The ancient pile driving machine is delivered in pieces to the job site. The crew assembles it and they use it's engine, railroad track, cables and pulleys to move it around the site. Once in place they drag a pile into position and begin driving it into the ground by dropping a 3 ton weight on it.
An engineer determines the size of the pile, in our case 8x8"x16', by drilling a test hole and the load it will carry.

Not all of the piles can be driven their full length into the ground. they hit bedrock, so they are chiseled off. There is rebar in each pile and it is bared and tied with the rebar in the 16x16x16" piece which is tied to the column rebar. The 16x16x16 covers the connecting joint between the pile and the column.

The workers make between 7 and 9 dollars a day. So they are not yet driven by technology. Drives me crazy if I watch too long, but beer is cheap and that helps.

Thanks Rad - the pics tell a story of how much of the world operates. Progress may be slow but at least you don't have all the stress of the million mile an hour advanced ( - ) western world.



BTW beautiful setting.

Brettski,
This is as close as I could get to a swim up bar, those poles will support the forms for the deck

Here is a look at the 16x16x16" (they are really 24x24x24", I miss heard the builder) footing I was trying to describe, the top of the post is near floor height