Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Here we go. Breaching the dam!

It was 10:30 on a sultry southern Tuesday morning. The sort of morning where the air is so thick with humidity that it feels as if you could scoop it into bowls and serve it as a new kind of pudding. The atmosphere was heavy with the promise of a day that could only be deemed as "Africa Hot" and would make you feel like a wrung out dishrag before it was over.




As I stood waiting on the banks of the disaster that I call a pond, I heard the low rumble of a diesel engine in the distance. Instantly I knew that my pond savior had come to rescue me from overgrown banks, shallow weed filled water and a leaky dam. For a moment I waited, heart racing, afraid that is was only a nearby tractor when I saw him top the hill.



As I had hoped it was none other than pond constructor extraordinaire Ronnie Rathel and his strapping young blond assistant introduced to me as Manuel Labor (funny, he did not look spanish to me) but in this day and age, names can be deceiving. After nearly two months of planning and scheduling conflicts, they had finally come to breach my dam and begin stage one of the pond renovation.



So they began to dig as I stood by with bated breath, armed with a new dip net that hubby had Irish Engineered into a 7 foot long tool with the addition of copious amounts of duct tape and a 4 foot length of conduit so that I could catch any escaping fish.



And they dug...



And they dug some more...



It was nearing one o'clock when they decided to break for lunch. Not realizing that it would take several hours to finish the work I had failed to bring anything with me. Being the well bred southern gentlemen they are, they offered to share their lunch with me. We sat down to a meal of potted meat, vienna sausages, saltine crackers, hot sauce and ice cold Mountain Dew. Can't say I've ever had a better meal. It made me remember all the hot afternoons that I spent fishing with my dad on Lake Eufaula as a child. We definitely had some happy times there and they make me miss him all the more.

After our quick lunch Ronnie and Manuel returned to work. Funny thing. Notice the Levi Garrett chaw in his top pocket? He had a wad of that stuff in his mouth the whole time and for the first two hours I never saw him spit! From my limited knowledge of chewing tobacco, swallowing is not a good idea. After lunch I started watching him out of the corner of my eye. He would look to see if I was looking and would only spit if he thought I wouldn't see him! What a character he is and it was a much appreciated polite gesture.



The digging got comical at times. Apparently the backhoe he borrowed has controls that are exactly opposite in operation to those of his excavator. To add insult to injury, this particular machine was not equipped with a switch that would reverse the controls. What should have been a two hour job was turning into a four job but he continued to dig muttering expletives under his breath.



Finally about 3:00 pm he hit water and with a torrent the pond began to drain!



After two hours of draining the water level had dropped about a foot and no fish had escaped.



I checked it early this morning and the water level had dropped another foot but the torrent had turned into a trickle. Ronnie had gotten as deep as he could without upending the backhoe and my dam is too narrow to support his excavator. So, I called in a willing friend who hand dug out the channel another foot deep and the water began to flow at a more steady rate. Hopefully in a few days the pond level will be down to where we want it and the higher ground will be begin to dry out.

The story will continue in mid to late July once the ground is dry and we begin to dig with the really big machines.

The saga is just beginning. Thanks for the great pics! I'm sure the progress pics will be just as nice. Good to hear that you've started.

Here's my mess from last year:
My Renovation

Looking forward to the July work, thanks for the pictures.

Anna, you have a descriptive way with words. You wouldn't you happen to write romance novels, would you?

P.S. Great pics, and best of luck.

Anna, you are going to be so happy with your new paradise when this is all over!

I went to college in Oklahoma and spent many a day off fishing Lake Eufala. Great memories for me too!

I thought the same thing when I read it yesterday.

I'm guilty of looking at the pics first and then reading your comments after already forming an opinion from the pictures. Seeing the United Rental sign on the backhoe led me to believe it was your husband or a friend on the backhoe. I also figured it was the cheap way to go and that you were cutting corners by renting a backhoe to breach the dam instead of an excavator.

Then when I read your comments, I got really confused. Why rent an old backhoe to do this instead of an excavator with enough reach to get the job done right? I know that sometimes you have to rent equipment, but why rent the wrong thing? Heck, it's not that hard to find a backhoe with an ExtandaHoe for more reach if you wanted to go that route. I can see where driving the backhoe down to the pond would be faster and easier then a mini or mid sized excavator, but don't understand why anybody would rent a standard hoe with a 12 digging depth when it needed to go deeper?

Then you really threw me with your comment that he couldn't get his excavator down there. Did he really say that? He's either got one HUGE excavator, or he's making up stories so he doesn't have to deal with moving it for such a small job.

I don't know anybody involved in this, but if I was you and based just on this one post, I'd be just a little cautious of what you are being told. There is no reason to lie about such little things, but those who lie about small things will always lie about big things.

Document everything. Don't change your payment plan with him. When it doubt, don't trust or believe what you are being told, but listen and then verify it. If you ever get that feeling that you need to fire him, but want to wait and hope for the best, or for things to get better, fire him right then. It never gets better, you only lose more money. Either you pay him for work that he doesn't do, or you have to hire somebody else to undo his work, and then do it properly.

I'm a General Contractor. I do remodels and home improvements. I don't do dirt work commercially, but hire it out. I've seen quite a few stunts and have learned to pay very close attention to what I'm told and what I see happening. When I'm told one thing and see another, I get nervous. You should be nervous based on what you wrote here and what I saw in those pictures.

Good luck,
Eddie

PS A good operator wont have any trouble between the various control patterns of an excavator and backhoe. Granted he'll have a favorite based on what he uses the most often, but most hired hands can jump in just about any brand or style of equipment and run it like a pro in just a few minutes. Just another red flag.

Theo: I am not familiar with that style of writing. Can you recommend any romance novels you have read lately?

Bing

Try "Love in the Time of Scurvy".

Thanks, just ordered it through Amazon.com.

Bing

Anna
I like Theo noticed your way with words.

LOL! Otto! In addition to renovating the pond we are building a house and reconditioning the 20 acres. I figured that by the end of this project it would be an epic saga to rival "Gone With The Wind!" It seemed appropriate to put it into a similar style. I think I am Scarlett and Ronnie is Ashley!

Eddie thanks for the tips but I do have complete comfort and confidence in Ronnie. His excavator is a 25 ton model and my dam unfortunately has no core and is mostly sandy soil. It is also only about 10' wide. The backhoe was practically hanging off the edges. Also, it is a borrowed piece of equipment that is owned by a friend of his. Apparently it was purchased from United.

In all honesty we did not think the breach would require anything larger than the backhoe and Ronnie is not charging me to do this stage of the work. Before we hired him I did get a couple of references and saw a couple of his projects. I met with two of his customers and they were happy with his performance and the outcome of the projects. He also comes highly recommended by the NRCS agent here. We are paying him based upon the machine hours once the digging starts in July and one of us will be on site for the entire project.

He really did not have any difficulty operating the machine. It was only when we stopped and he got back on the machine. Instinctively he would start out as he would with his excavator. He'd mutter a little bit and then get to work. My dam is so narrow, that it was a challenge to get the trench deep enough because there was limited space to move around and we did not want to dump the backhoe in the pond or trench.

Thank you though for the concern and the information. I will surely stay on top of everything once we really begin to dig.

There is a Lake Eufaula in Oklahoma? Mine is in Alabama! Wow. Who would have thought there were two of them!

I do miss my dad though. I have two brothers. One older and one younger, but I was the one who always went fishing with dad and worked in the shop with him at home. He taught me to be fearless and showed me that no project was insurmountable with a little thought and planning.

That sounds like all romance novels. Seems they are all set in the middle ages or antebellum south!

Keep us up to date when the work starts in July!!!!!

http://www.city-data.com/city/Eufaula-Oklahoma.html http://www.eufaulaalabama.com/

Very cool link Burger! Thanks! Our Lake Eufaula is in Eufaula Alabama.

We will begin digging on MONDAY!!!! Of course I will get you pictures. I am really excited. In a few weeks I might have a functional pond that does not look like a snake pit!

I thought ponds were supposed to be snake pits. Dangit.

LOL Walt! Well, mine still is a snake pit. We got rained out this week and have not started digging yet. To add insult to injury, the pond has filled back up and now we are going to have to pump it down.

Sounds somewhat maddening. Here's to hoping you can start digging soon - I'm sure the anticipation is killing you.

We made some progress yesterday although it more closely resembled carnage. Since we are waiting on the pond level to drop Ronnie started clearing unwanted pine trees from around the house site. By the time I got there at 4 yesterday he had felled over 30 pines! It looked like a hurricane had come through.

It was pretty amazing to watch him just drive up to a 70 foot tree and topple it with the excavator. When he jumped down from the cab to say hello he had the biggest ****-eating grin on his face that I have ever seen. You could tell that he was having the time of his life. Somehow it feels like he should be paying me! It looks like too much fun.

I know when we had the Bobcat out there with the brushcutter I was instantly addicted. I can't even imagine how much fun it would be to drive the excavator, which Ronnie did tell me he would let me try out. I'm really looking forward to getting to play with that big toy!

Anna:

All that stuff is fun to play with, but after sitting in the same seat, doing the same thing for a couple weeks straight, it gets old. Try it tho, they are just BIG toys!

I know how Ronnie feels!

Let the madness begin!

We got started on the pond yesterday morning. By the time I got there at 7:30 they already had about 1/4 of the pond dug out. I tried to get some before pictures so that you can track the progress. Here they come...









Here they have started clearing out the north end of the pond. It was full of timber! Apparently they felled the trees to put the pond in and just left them all there. Even down 5-6 feet the main channel is still about 8 feet deep.







There was so much timber. It really slowed things down.









While they were digging the pond they also had a couple of guys trimming trees and dragging out the ones we had knocked down. Now this is trust!



Talking with Bubba the excavator operator later in the day, he suggested we put in an island. We had planned a dock but an island would be great and would serve the same purpose. It would also give them a better reach with the excavator. Plus it would not cost nearly as much as a dock. So he started the island and in about 2 1/2 hours he was nearly done with the base.








I said island. Not runway for Airforce One!



After the island Bubba got back to clearing the north corner. He had been waiting for it to dry out some more. There are so many feeder springs that we have to run the pump constantly to keep up.





So much wood!



But it is starting to look good.



I have to work today but will go out after work to take some more pictures. I can't believe how much they have gotten done in just three days of work.

Great pics, Anna...I'm liking the progress!