Its been awhile since I've looked at this thread. Anyways to answer questions and or statements, here I go.
Sitting on a skid steer that many hours was tough. My New Holland had solid filled tires and that took away any Cadillac ride that skid steers never had in the first place. I sat on a pillow.
I used forks to break up the soil a couple of feet deep as I didn't have a bucket with teeth.
Tracks increase the load on the engine when operating the machine. If it is too wet to push dirt without tracks, then it is too wet to work the dirt. Having tracks on the machine would have only slowed me down.
There were several reasons I did this pond myself. The pond builder I wanted to build my pond died in the middle of another pond renovation he was doing for me (nothing to do with my pond). I tried 2 other contractors and they never got back with me on a price. The recession that occurred at the same time. My work was slow as a result giving me time on my hands. I really don't recommend doing this yourself, but I take pride every time I look at what I accomplished, which is daily.
Also I didn't stock it like I wanted. Fish washed down from a neighbor upstream giving me LM bass, bluegill, green sunfish, and crappie. I had stocked RE sunfish and fathead minnow before I discovered the unwanted other fish. The cool water stocking plan got revised.
Thank you for your replies and I am sorry that I was absent so long from this thread. I just had someone I know tell me they came across this thread and it prompted me to look at it again.
