Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam My Second Pond: Ground Breaking!

theo, the banter here should lift yer spirit during the nervousness of excavation and the outlay of hard earned pennies (sorry about the pig thing....but i saw it in the trees and couldnt help myself).

awesome pics of yellow iron......i love the smell of diesel in the morning. it must wreak havoc on you that you cant be there all day.

where are yer rocks coming from? are they rounded or angular...curious if they are glacial in origin. the more rocks the merrier is my opinion from el dorado....keep the pics, stories, and documentation coming......great stuff.

Dang Theo when you get to working on a project you don't mess around! That is some serious heavy equipment. Beautiful soil also - looks like you could grow anything in it - your Hay is gonna leap out of the ground!

Continue to man the FinePix A500 the photos are great!

Core is now above ground and probably 3/4 done. Basin is beginning to take shape, as the hole you can see to the left of the dam is finish depth for that area. Absolute bottom will be about a foot deeper.


:) I've got tomorrow scheduled off; Mrs Gallus is tied up both A.M. & P.M. and I may just get to run the compacter.

We are roughly on the average stopping point for the four big ice age sheets' farthest progress South. North and West of us is flat & smooth, South & East of us is very hilly. Bedrock is shale. Loose rocks are anything found between here and the Canadian Shield (except maybe sandstone; I don't think it travels well under a glacier). Size ranges (so far) up to a chunk of pink granite uncovered while digging the first pond that was about 8' on the major axis and 3-4' across (it's sitting up-ended on the bottom of the pond with the top 3' below the waterline at full pool). For a sample of shapes, I photographed some leftovers from the first pond since they've had 6 years to get the dirt washed off.

my finders fee is 25c per site (or item). thats how i do it. whenever i refer business to folks (or facilitate a finding or sale). it may sound cheap, but the goodwill spread from the gesture comes back to me ten-fold in continued business relationships and friendships.

that said......theo, and all you mid-westerners, beware, keep yer eyes open, whenever you dig in the heartland the possibility of finding an iron meteorite (and other more rare types) is VERY REAL. Individual stones can bring in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

that said.....please remember my first paragraph

have fun on the compactor theo.......she's taking shape real nice. nice rocks BTW.....the pink granite you described could be over 1 billion years old...how does it feel to own a piece of canada?

that said......theo, and all you mid-westerners, beware, keep yer eyes open, whenever you dig in the heartland the possibility of finding an iron meteorite (and other more rare types) is VERY REAL. Individual stones can bring in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.


"Honey, I'm not digging another pond. I'm strip mining for meteorites."

Let me know if this works.

Theo,

It sure looks great. The only thing better would be if that was my back yard.

I guess I'm not surprised, but your rocks and soil look just like mine.

And, you may really be in luck. By the end of next week the remnants of Tropical Storm Dean and Tropical Depression #5 may be filling it for you.

Keep the photos and progress coming.

Ken

We had a short crew this morning, as my excavator finished earthmoving for a sidewalk job, then hauled his small trackhoe to my place. So I gathered rocks from around the farm for a couple hours while his #2 operator smoothed out topsoil we had spread in 2 hayfields.

I got to run the compactor for about 5 hours after lunch. We raised the core about 18" today. The current top is still about a foot below the planned full pool waterline. After laser shooting the spot 3' below the waterline where the 1" waterline (for cattle) will enter them dam, I measured eventual depth at the current low spot in the hole - it'll be about 11 1/2 feet deep.

The 1" water line and it's 2 anti-seep collars went through the dam yesterday. Today we installed a freeze-out hydrant and cut-off valve (accessible through the corrugated pipe) below the dam for eventual cattle watering. The job was, for some reason (see genius Son holding idiot stick ), easier than it was 6 years ago with our first pond.

What did you use for the anti-seep's at the water line?

2'x2' rubber sheet types from AgriDrain Corp in Adair Iowa. I missed it due to day job requirements, but Mrs. Gallus bonded the sheet to the pipe with silicone seal. Our excavator did the small ditch refill compaction honors with your old friend, Mr. Jumpin' Jack. He owns his own.

Theo

Did you get rained out????

We're all waiting for an update.

I hope that no news is good news.

Had to stay out of the basin for a week due to 3+" of rain which left 3+ feet of water in the bottom. We pumped it out Wedenesday P.M. with a 3" trash pump, let things dry for another day, and got 2 good days of work in Friday and Saturday.

The core is almost finished now; the center 80% is full height and the ends need about another 6"-10". It will get about 6" of topsoil on top of that. Then the work contouring spawning beds, an underwater island, and a 4 foot deep "seining flat" will be done. My excavator thinks there's about 3 days of work left on the pond.

As of yesterday:

I LOVE the idea of a seining flat. That's awesome.

It will also work great as a lepomis spawning area.

10-4 on the seining flat/bed. I had thought about convolutions on the bottom of mine, then I thought about needing to sein.
Looking good. I had also thought about a peninsula, then changed to an islend with a short bridge connecting. That way, the circulation from the aerator will not be interrupted.

Aeration water flow + fishing ease are the reasons my submerged island is going in off to one side.

Wow, sweet! Love the photos.

The core is finished! About 2/3 of the basin (by area, much more by volume) is now complete. The excavation crew spent the afternoon coordinating with me on the phone to come up with places to remove clay to:

1) Topsoil moved from bottom of backside of dam to top, clay added to backside of dam. It now has a really gentle slope, will be great for mowing. The topsoil will get spread over the clay tomorrow.

2) Cut 50 foot path for scraper to the logging roads in the woods, will haul a bunch back there. My wife called twice to ensure that it wouldn't accidentally get put where the 3rd pond might go someday. She said she doesn't want to have to pay to move it twice.

3) 39 yards dumped inside the machinery barn to raise the floor level and hopefully stop water entry during heavy storms with a South wind. I stockpiled 120 yards of clay from the first pond and moved it in here later, but underestimated how much it would take. This should fix it.



I'm glad we built the doors 16' wide and 14' high!

The dirt work in the bowl is finished. The dam is complete except for putting the drain pipe through it (that goes in tomorrow). About 80% of the shore has topsoil re-spread on it (much done after today's pictures were taken); The bulk of the remaining topsoil will go on the field on the other side of the brushpile (to ensure it drains) and to raise the shore on the inlet side of the pond.

We have 100 bales of straw (and a contact good this weekend for more, if needed) for mulching and have rented the mulch chopper/blower from the local soil and water office for a 4 day weekend (I will post a picture of it for those who have never seen one - it's a neat piece of machinery). Our objective for the weekend (which starts tomorrow since I'm taking the day off - woo hoo!) is to get all of the exposed dirt, down to a couple of feet below the eventual waterline, seeded, and mulch at least the worst of the slopes (dam, shoreline, fields draining in to the pond).

Here is the nearly-finished view of the entire pond:



and here is a picture (that I wish was more differentiating) of the dirt structures on the SE side of the pond. With luck or a little imagination you may be able to see two SMB spawning shelves (at 3' and 5' of depth) on the right side, the submerged island ("Atlantis") smack dab in the middle, and a seining area on the left side. There are another set of SMB spawning shelves on the NE side on the pond, too.

Great photos Theo, keep them coming.

I love the photo of the "machinery barn" also - that building must be huge!

Can you retake that last photo in evening or early morning light? I think the contrast would help the visual.

I'm saving some bluegill for your project.

JHAP: It's not really all that big, measures 40'x52', but it's got 9 doors (seven 10 feet wide and the 2 big 16 feet wide ones the scraper went through). The center (free span) section is 26'x40' with about 18' of head room. The scraper almost started driving back out before it finished driving in.

Bruce: I will take another pic, as soon as it's not overcast. Today was not one of the 90 days of sun we get each year.

It looks...mahvelous!
Good job, Theo. Man, you're gonna have a tough time decidin' which pond to park your can o' worms and cane po at. Yeah, I sure do wanna see the mulch chopper. Perennial rye?

Thanks for all the photos Theo. The place looks great. Keep in mind that the chopper/mulcher seems to take twice as much straw as you'd think but it's great that our counties have them available. It's a perfect time to plant grass. Here's a link for review http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...=true#Post74453 Not an ad but of the 4 varieties of seed mix I've used at my place, Champaign Landmark's Athletic Turf mix has performed the best and doesn't require much mowing.

C'mon Straw-Chopper...update/pics!