It s good to know. For now I’ll just be getting some familiarity with this forum. I can tell you this, not only am I west of the hundredth meridian,I’m even west of the Continental Divide, situated in the Colorado River drainage, it puts me in a minority here I imagine.It means I don’t have free range over ponds or much at all in relation to water. Here every drop of water already has its predetermined destiny.

The first time I made a diversion into the old reservoir it began to fill nicely then stopped an d quickly drained, I guess out of the bottom. The water quickly found a fissure into the aquifer and was gone. I have to consider that one irredeemable and even question if it ever was put to use. That use was likely ice harvesting which was a practice along many of the creeks in the valley.

Last year the snow pack was excellent so I thought I’d take advantage and capture some excess run-off with an improvised cover over the culvert opening of a rock built dam spanning the creek. This worked out better than expected with the water backing up while not diminishing the flow to the neighbor. At that point when I had some confidence in retaining the water I set some wood in there to water it in an experiment. (A picture’s getting posted as soon as I get the mechanics of that all worked out.) I do wonder if others also use ponds to water wood which is the first reason for getting these ponds back into use.