Well, almost a year later now, I decided to update this topic and show the latest pictures. I have been piddling with this pond off and on, while doing other things that are more urgent, but enjoying every minute of it.
I didn't take any shots of the coring I did on the low side of the pond where I had to remove sandy soil and pack clay in its place, but it went pretty quick. I used the dozer to push all the sandy soil out and into a pile, then used the tractor and box blade to layer in and pack the clay in its place. The weather cooperated nicely and wet the clay soil almost perfectly for packing.
After that was done, I went to work on the overflow/drain pipe and main part of the dam. I had no option on the main part of the dam but to clean down to the iron ore slab that was right where I didn't want it to be, then pack clay on it as well as I could. The drain/overflow pipe had to lay right on top of the iron ore slab to get it as low as possible, but I used a pickaxe and gouged out a slot in which to form up and pour a concrete baffle to stop any seepage around the pipe.
I went with 4 inch schedule 40 PVC pipe as this is a rather small pond which will have a large spillway. I plan to use the overflow pipe to feed water to the next pond farther downhill, and I will be pumping water into this pond from a 1-1/4 inch water pipe. So that should suffice. Below are pictures of building the baffle.
After I poured the concrete into the form and left, it rained a couple of days later and mud built up around it. I removed the form and it looked like this.
I cleaned up all the mud and then brought in a loader full of the best clay I had and I hand packed and tamped it all around the baffle and pipe until it was high enough to start packing it with the tractor tires. I slowly and carefully packed the clay around the baffle and made sure it was well compacted. I kept building it up layer by layer until it looked like this and the baffle was completely covered with clay.
In the following weeks, I added an extension to the pipe and kept adding clay and packing it with the tractor and box blade. More pictures to come in the next posts.
