Illini Bill - I think the problem is they see the size of my house and think I can swing that kind of money easily. When in reality I had the opportunity to build at the lowest point of the great recession and had companies competing over getting my business. Then in the end after these companies kept calling me lowering the prices, I had a relative that came in below all of their prices and he built my house. Of course he used the same guy to excavate my house that I had out here yesterday though. I'm smart enough not to pay anywhere close to 8K.... for my 1/10th acre. That means if he wanted to do a 1 acre pond - 8K multiply that by 10 to get an acre.... that's $80K an acre. That's a ridiculous price.
Fish n chips - I don't think it's as bad as a swamp. In the summer, the ground stays dry... even the wettest part where the pond is going. It's during the spring (when we have the snow melting and rain coming in) the ground stays saturated where the pond is going. It rained Monday about 1.10" and Wednesday I was walking on it. Water wasn't on the surface, but you had that squishy sound from stepping on the clayish soil. The ground is ever so slightly tilted towards this pond area. If you stand back where this pond is going and look up the yard behind my septic, you can see the ground maybe drops 3-4" within this 400' span. So it's a very gradual slope, but I'm hoping they can make that greater so it collects more water.
Could this possibly turn into a swamp at all... that's kind of concerning.
Here's the area when we were clearing out all the brush last year. You can't see the gradual slope from this angle, but it's their
