el dorado dave--good grief i'da stroked out over that bid--that makes my cost sound great except that without having to construct a dam that surrounds 60% of the prerimeter i could have come out much cheaper. the brothers constructing this pond earned their money although it still hurts me to part with dough--there was much, much dirt dug and moved to get this done--i imagine if they were to rebid it now it would be higher. i dug the trench this weekend and ran pipe to feed the spring into the pond--i now have a flow about like a good bathtub faucet in it 24hr/day now. though it will probably dry up in summer the spring will at least let me start the summer with a full pond so i am grateful for that. i don't have a digital camera but have many photos i can scan and put on the board if someone can give me some advice on doing that. thanks