Ok folks I am still getting to know everyone but ya'll rock and I wanted to follow up about the land I mentioned that I was going to look at this weekend that had an existing pond of about a half acre on it.

Well let me just say I am soooo stoked about this now. My wife and I had planned to look to buy a place next year once my son was off to college and we could move permanently out of the city. But I found this place and we had to go look and now we must really soul search and decide if we are willing to have two house payment for about the next 11 months. I think I am and wait till you hear why.

When I first go to the place I loved a ton about it. There is a shop with two bays and an office that is real nice with AC and all. I think building this shop alone would cost almost half what the asking price of the whole place is. There are a few nice barns, the house is beautiful but smaller then what we have, I don't care because it is just me and the wife after next year so it is really bigger then we need.

The pond was a disappointment due to the lack of rain it is only about half full right now BUT the good news is good beyond words. I have a guy going to do a ground survey before we decide to make an offer or not but I don't expect there to be much of a problem at all with the ground, every hole with in miles of the place has orange clay in the bottom of it!

The existing pond is not really built in the right place as it is on some of the highest land on the property, it was very well done but just does not fully take advantage of the land. My guess is the gentlemen that built it just wanted it very close to the house because just below it is the majority of the land which is shaped like, are you ready for this? A GIANT BOWEL that is lower then the rest of the land.

From what I can see building a very large pond will be far more of an impoundment rather then an excavation. Placed in this location the pond would gain drain off from a huge area beyond the property lines.

90% of the project would just be scraping the top soil and moving earth to create the dam. Any excavation would really just be for bottom scaping.

The potential pond could be 3 acres to 7 perhaps 8 acres just based on where you choose to build the dam! So basically the construction cost should be similar for any size lake I want to build with the only variable being my bottom scaping. I also own a small bobcat and could do a lot of extra scaping on my own!

So the only question is how much land would I be willing to give up, the answer of course is all of it. So this LOOKS like a place I can create a 7-8 acre lake for what most would spend to create may be a 1-2 acre lake.

I am so stoked but I have to make a good decision we will have to do a bit of sacrificing for the next year to buy it. Yet if the survey comes back good and I get a firm estimate for what I expect construction costs to be by the time we were to move in full time next year if this drought ends I could not just have the place of my dreams but the pond of my dreams full of water as well.

It really could not be more perfect there is even a dry creek bed in the bottom of the property that the over flow can be easily directed into.

Wish me luck folks!

Jack Spirko
www.jackspirko.com