No updates for a while. I have a 10" titanium rod in my arm from breaking it 5 years ago. With all of the heavy lifting adding structure I had my lower pin pull out. Therefore I had surgery yesterday morning to remove the pin. So it has slowed me down a bit. Here is what my arm looked like before surgery.
Now to the important stuff. I had a load of very large rock to start placing in the pond. I have 4 loads coming so far. I was able to get it for $75 a load, very pleased with that price. My wife wants to use some of it for landscaping. She can't believe that I want to cover it up with water. lol
Sorry for only posting pictures of rock but as soon as I heal up and get some equipment these will make some nice structure for the swimmers. The picture shows 3 of the 4 loads that I have had delivered so far. It is freezing cold here in MO. Supposed to be another cold, snowy and freezing rain filled weekend. The pond has over a foot of water in the deepest end at this point. Just from the overflow of the spring. I'm hoping the rains hold off until I can get all of the structure placed.
I drove out to the land yesterday to see how things were looking. Snapped a few pics for you guys. I am very pleased how quickly the spring is running into the new pond. It is now over 2'deep in the deepest end. You can see some of the structure that I placed a few weeks ago. I have a long ways to go. Hopefully within a few weeks I can start back to doing some manual labor at the pond.
Nice pics. I noticed the pallet pyramid structure and thought I would pass along my experience with the ones I built. I put Christmas trees inside some of mine and weighted them down with a 40 lb bag of cement. That did not work to keep them where I put them. I found two of mine floating one day and had to then add cement blocks tied on them to hold them in or near the bottom. So u might want to add more weight or stake them down where they are before the water rises. Tracy
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
Thanks, I do plan to add some concrete blocks to them. I have some big rock and brick in them now but I was planning to add more weight. I was sidelined for a while because of arm surgery. Hope to get released and to start working on it again in a few weeks. Hopefully before much rain.
The pond has over 3' of water in the deep end now. A little bit of it is from a few inches of snow but mainly from the spring. I still have some work to do with my concrete block piles. I was just getting them started when I had to quit because of my injury. Hopefully I can poke around some this weekend. It was down to 5 yesterday and its supposed to be in the 50's and 60's over the next week. Might be a little muddy though.
Thanks, I do plan to add some concrete blocks to them. I have some big rock and brick in them now but I was planning to add more weight. I was sidelined for a while because of arm surgery. Hope to get released and to start working on it again in a few weeks. Hopefully before much rain.
Just don't over do it and ruin the surgery. Not worth making it a "permanent" injury.
My boys and I hit it pretty hard over the weekend in between trips to basketball games and church. You wouldn't think it would be so time consuming. I am very sore this morning but my arm has held up well. If you look at the picture that shows the little pond in the background you can see my 11 year old's leaning tower of tires. I ran out of room on my phone and couldn't take any more pictures. Most of the pallets have plastic drain tile and tires in them. They may never hold a fish but they do look nice. I have some really big boulder rock to move but I will need some much bigger equipment to do that. I will also start adding some cut down trees and stumps. Any suggestions or advice?
looking good, I will tell u when I did my tire things, I drilled holes in the top side of the tires, so air would escape an the tires would stay in place. But half of my tires still floated when the water came up. I then got in the boat and tried to move the tires back to where I first had them. But, they were heavy and I had little luck moving them back. I had my portable hand drill with me and so I drilled larger holes in the top of the tires and they went straight to the bottom. I was not able to hold them up at the surface. So they now set on bottom in the area they floated to. My point here, is make sure u have drilled some holes the size of a nickel in the very top of your tires. I did drill holes in the beginning but I am guessing they were to small or were located in the wrong spot on the tires. Tracy
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
That is good to know. We have drilled holes in all of them but they are definitely not the size of a nickel. May need the boys to go back with a bigger bit. I also have them weighted down with some concrete blocks. Some of the structure are also staked down with rods and fence posts.
In my little pond, I skim the floating stuff off with a dip net. If the conditions are right, you won't need to worry about transfer to your big pond, it will come all by itself anyway!
We plan to put our house in the area of the walnut tree. The pond is over 450' long, not sure how wide. I really enjoyed the 60+ degree day that we had yesterday. Went out after work yesterday and basically just walked around the pond and day dreamed. It's only 4 miles from my current home. So it is real convenient.
Just found this thread. Very nice looking pond! I've been going through some of the same situations with building a pond. Mine is on a smaller scale, and no spring to fill it. I'm waiting on rain, and it's pretty dry in NE Missouri. Plus I didn't come in "under" budget! Ha. Looks nice. I wish I could have done it when my kids were younger, but it wasn't in the budget back then. I'm trying to lure the grand kids out now. Jeff
9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep. RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these. I think that's about all I should put in my little pond. Otter attack in 2023
Thanks SetterGuy! This project as along with our 58 acres has been a family decision all of the way through. My wife and I both have pretty good jobs for our area but our pockets are not very deep. We so badly want our kids to have an opportunity that we didn't have so we have made sacrifices to make it happen. In fact I sold my new crew cab truck and purchased a very nice 2004 truck with only 71,000 miles on it just to get away from another vehicle payment. My priorities have really changed in the last few years. Our two boys love being at the "ranch" lol. They are really liking "Money Pit Lake"! Neither of them can wait for the water to fill. I am starting the beginning stages of our 12'x 20' stationary dock this weekend. There will be no walkway. The end of the dock will be in at least 10' of water so the boys should have no problem jumping off of it when at full pool. There is always something to do! Your grand kids will love it too!
We started building our permanent dock. Decided to go 12'x 16' with a 6' walkway. Was going to do it 20' out to get more depth but couldn't get any materials longer than 16'. So we decided to go ahead and do a walkway as well. The depth of water at the end of the dock should be 9-10' of water. Which I think is deep enough for the kids to jump off of. I was very lucky to have my pond builder to come over and drill the 10 holes for us. He is a great guy! Should look different by next weekend.
Nice!! Building a pond sure is fun isn't it? It's good you're taking lots of pictures. As our pond filled, we marked its progress w/pink flamingos. It was funny to look at all the wildlife tracks that came up to them to check them out. We poured concrete pillars for a dock before the pond filled up but still haven't gotten around to building it yet, and it doesn't look like it will be for awhile. That's no so bad as it always gives us something else to look forward to.
I was able to get my dad and a friend of his to get the posts set before the rain hits that they are predicting. I couldn't get away from work. My dad is an old contractor and has built many of houses in his day. I hired his friend to help him with some of the heavy lifting and more of the tedious things. I think it is looking really good. We used 5 x 5 posts with 2 - 2x8's for the beams. We have 10 posts and 3 beams. The joists will be on 16" centers. I will be using 2x6's for the flooring. Of course everything is treated. I think it will serve our needs, just hope it lasts a while.