Yep on the confusion. I thought you cleaned up the water holes but they still existed.

You can DIY a shallow well, but I think you need a larger diameter casing to pump the amounts of water you will need.

I have done one shallow sand point well at a buddy's remote cabin. It was easy, but we just installed a hand pump for drinking water. I think we did a 1-1/2" point.

l assume you have done the math on your pond's water requirements. If not, here are some basics.

1 acre-foot is 326,000 gallons of water. In peak summer, if you were losing 1/2" per day that would be 27,167 gallons. (326,000 gallons/acre foot divided by 12 inches/foot divided by 2 (for a 1/2") times 2 surface acres)

That is 1,132 gallons per hour, or 19 gallons per minute.

19 gpm sounds reasonable for a small pump, but that is for continuous pumping. You will need a much bigger pump for a ten hour solar day during the summer, or a much larger solar array so you can charge a large battery pack and pump through the night.

Also, 19 gpm is only for summer maintenance. Even if you doubled your pump rate, then you would only be raising your pond level by 1/2" per day when it is very low due to a drought.

I hope that gives you some numbers to start your calculations. I would also call your local water well driller and ask him to give you a rough estimate to drill and case a 25' well. That will at least give you a dollar cost for comparison to DIY options.

These are all options that I have considered for our own farm, so I certainly wish you the best of luck on this project!