Thanks for the input & ideas. I will check out the link.
Right now things are going slow. I had dug out the bottom when I rented a mini excavator two weekends ago. I needed dirt because I reshaped the pond and I needed to put the dirt against a "wall" I made from PT wood & filter/dock cloth. Digging the pond out gave me the dirt I needed to put against both sides of this new wall but at one end of the pond I could not find any way to get the machine in without getting trapped so I piled what dirt I figured I would need as close as I could to this end and I am now having to hand shovel a lot of dirt. It also has been raining a bit so it is slow going. Once I get the sides of the pond configured I will put some effort into removing some of the muck that I couldn't get with the machine. I managed to get a fair amount of it with the pump and the strainer that is on it but I had to manually position it as it dug through this muck. It is hard to describe this "soil". When it has been above the water line for several days it seems nearly dry but I I stand on it and move around the water comes up from inside of it and I slowly sink. As it gets wetter & wetter it gets very soft and VERY hard to get out of. I suppose it has a lot of clay material incorporated in it but I've never seen soil behave this way. It is like it transforms its state from a solid to a goo with a little agitation. It is also very heavy which is a real pleasure with all the shovel work I am having to do. The fact that it tends to stick like gum to the shovel as I try to toss it is an added bonus. I really hope this project at least slows my leaking down.
Thanks
Howard

Beekeeper for chordoma.org Hampstead, NC