Finishing up. While the rubber tire scraper makes a good compaction device, it does not leave the surface level. The dozer tracks make a good final leveling and working device. They mash down the high spots and the grousers slightly work the soil surface.
When going over center on top of the dam, the added pressure of only about the middle half of the tracks making contact compress the edges of the dam and make a nice rounded finish.
I will leave this surface rough just as it appears in the pictures till next spring or summer. I may get a little erosion, depending on the rain we get over winter, but the grouser marks will help minimize it. The clay right now works about like Play Dough. Any attempt to work it with a disc or box blade and it just ends up a chunky nasty mess. So I will let mother nature do my work for me and the weathering process will make the top inch or two work very nicely by next summer.
Then I will box blade and harrow the surface and prepare it for seeding. Hopefully will get some lime on both the dam and in the pond sometime this winter.
I'm done with the pond construction process for now. Building a couple terraces in the adjacent field to direct water to it, but the pond itself is DONE and ready for rain to fill it.
