Lol you got me Brettski. I finished the pond a month ago but am not happy with the speed (or lack thereof) at which it's filling. We have had an abnormally dry March here though. Last Saturday I used the dozer to create two more drains from the field above to the upper lip of the pond. Also removed a hump of dirt that was channeling some of the runoff around the pond rather than in it. The drain in the pics drains only one part of the field above, and it's starting to wash. I created that drain right after finishing the pond. But seed is sown and there are millions of tiny blades of grass popping up, just can't see them in the pics. The water is slowly rising and it's just off to the left of the pics. Also there is a huge log just behind where I'm standing for taking the pics, will be convenient to cash to from the pier. I'm gonna try real hard not to work on the pier any more until the pond is full. I'm dying for a good hard rain again to see how much additional runoff is dumped from the dirt work.
Rockytopper, we need pics! Sounds like you have found a great solution.
The 3 sonotubes are actually only 1 foot or so in the ground, but the 6x6s go deeper. I used two 12" 4' long sonotubes, cut in two with a wood saw. 3 and a half 80 lb bags of sackrete is about perfect for one 12", 4' sonotube if you have a 6x6 in it. If you use 4 bags it will overflow. Ice and frost heaving are not problems here so I didn't mind going with shorter tubes. It might look like the tubes are in farther because of mounded up dirt. I dug the holes with a handheld posthole digger, and got them just loose enough where the sonotubes could go in without deforming. Then I put gravel in the bottom of the holes and leveled the sonotubes. Then lifted the 6x6s in and poured 1 bag of sackrete in each hole. That was enough to stabilize the poles to be able to do final measurements/moving and get everything level. After the 6x6s were moved into place and leveled I put water in and mixed up the sackrete in the tubes. Then a final measuring and leveling and then the rest of the water and sackrete. After the sackrete in the tops of the tubes looked like they were almost dry I filled up the tops of the tubes with water again. RobA, I would be very interested in seeing pics of your pier.
Everything feels real solid and I think it will be a good base. The pier design is already in my mind and I just need the pond to get full of water before finishing. It will be pretty hard to wait, I might be tempted to eyeball the deck level before the pond is full
