Progress Report:Here it is in the middle of June, the spring flood has receded, plants have found their way into the pond, and critters are showing up. The pond is about one foot deep with boggy areas at the edges. I had originally planned to drain the pond at the end of summer and excavate it to about three to four feet, but I'm beginning to like the bog look.
Anyway, here is a view from the dam between the ponds looking up towards the wet weather stream. The stream is lined with river birch, sweet bay magnolias, and bald cypress trees that I have been planting the last three years.
And here is a view from the field between the house and the pond. The dam is marked by the dead rye grass to the right of the bald cypress on the left. You can see part of he main pond behind the cypress. The emergency spillway is on the far side of the dam.
As suggested, I definitely plan to increase the width and height of the dam in August and probably replace the six inch pipe with at least an eight inch one at that time. But I accept the fact that there is no way to really separate the two ponds when we have floods like we had this year. Although the frog pond was connected to the main pond with probably six inches of water in the spillway for more than a week this spring, I have not seen any bass or even large bluegill in the frog pond so far. Or course the blue heron and the green herons might have taken care of that for me.
I might need to consider adding some sort of small fish for mosquito control. Other than that, I guess I'll just enjoy the frog pond/bog until August and then decide whether to make it bigger and deeper or just add to the dam and leave the rest pretty much as is.
