Hey ya'll! I've been lurking here for almost two years, this site has helped me so much. I found it a little to late though (not really just after I chose the site)ha ha. I chose site selection forum for my intro because I don't know anyone else who chose the side of a mountain as their pond site. This has caused much grief, learning, and perseverence, but might pay off in the long run.
I have 8.5 acres on a sloping red clay terrain, with about 30 acres of steep watershed. I cleared 5 acres leaving large trees for the horses and pond. I had 1 acre pond built by damming up a "v" in the slope, and digging out a bowl with a depth of 8-10 feet with shallows 2-4 ft. It's now about 1/2-3/4 surface acre because we cut off our stand pipe due concerns about our dam. I found this site two weeks after the dam was started and after reading this site for days I asked for them to shoot the level "it wasn't", asked about coring the dam, "it wasn't", asked about seepage collars on the pipe "there wasn't". So needless to say I got what I paid for, and hired a new crew with some experience to redo half the dam, shoot the level, and resculpt the bowl, raise the dam etc. (Couldn't afford new pipe, coring, but added dirt to top of dam to create weight on it)
The pond is almost two years old, now has had been 1/4 full for last year and finally filled up three weeks ago with rains from hurricane Faye. Now the fun has begun. I'm assuming I can't attach pics so I'll have to upload them to a site for you to see I have some good ones. So now, I have a red clay pond 1/2 the size I thought it was going to be, with some horizontal surface cracks in the top of the dam, (which we filled up the next day), and lots of errosion of clay into the pond during the storms. It never breeched the spillway but it would have if it kept raining 1 more inch.
I've learned:
our spillway wasn't deep enough - we've dug it out 3 more feet
our dam wasn't thick enough at mid point - lowered water level
our watershed, dam, banks needs lot's more grass etc
I need to order alum to clear up my peanut butter pond
Thanks to all here the outcome is looking better all the time. Sometimes I've almost had them bulldoze it flat and make a garden. It's not leaking, it's holding water, for three weeks it's dropped a few inches a day which I think is ok?! After the rains, I put out 500 lbs of rye, fescue, lime, fertilizer, straw.
Now I'm tired and broke and waiting to see what happens with my expensive little pond, which by the way already has frogs, tadpoles and a snake! Thanks for listening and if you have questions or suggestions, I'm an open book! I'll get some pics added soon.
Jen
Last edited by mtnpondlady; 09/15/08 02:38 PM.
