Congrats on a great pond with such a small piece of equipment. I am surprised you didnt put a set of tracks on your skid steer to help with dozing the dirt up.
I toyed with the idea of excavating a 1/2 acre pond with my 30 year old backhoe but decided against it. I am glad I did. I hired a friend with a Cat excavator to dig the pond, but I moved over 4000 yards of sand and did all the landscaping. My old backhoe has moved a lot of sand in the last few years, and I have had about $3000 in repairs, doing all the repair work myself. I also bought a 5 yard dumptruck, and have sold enough sand to pay for a lot of the repairs.
Selling about $2500 worth of logs from the pond site helped defray costs as well. I still have all the equipment also.
As Eddie said very wisely, this kind of project is not for most people. It take a lot of time and patience. The right kind of friends are also a must.
