Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? My front yard cow pond

My front yard cow pond - part 2.

9/27/11
Yep, it is a nasty, stinky, muckhole. Not much more than waist deep. Full of FA and mutt fish - CC, LMB, BG, BCP, GSH,
GSF, BH, a couple giant GC, a snapping turtle or two, a family of muskrats, and no telling what all else. Our ducks thought
it was a paradise. Everybody else thought it was pretty gross. I'm starting to think about how can I clean up this mess,
but it really wasn't close to the top of my list of things to do. Not quite yet, anyway.


4/8/12
It looked a little better the next spring, but that was about to end.


7/21/12
2012 was a very hot, very dry, summer here in Central Missouri. The pond had only 10 days to live when this picture was
taken. Oldest son and I went to the 360 Sprint Car Nationals in Knoxville, IA the first weekend of August. When we got
home from the racetrack the pond was dead. There were a few BH piping, and the surface was littered with dead fish.
Thousands of them. The stench was horrendous. I knew there were some whopper channel cats in here, but I had no idea
how big or how many. A dozen of them would have been over 20lbs when they were alive. It was a really sad day.


9/24/12
There was no point in letting it refill, so I called dirt guy and had the dam cut. His guesstimate for cleanout was between
$7k and $11k. That set the gears in my head to grinding. After being snowed-in a few times, my wife and I had already been
discussing the purchase of a tractor. We'd been thinking a 4wd Class I compact around 30hp would do what we needed with regard
to clearing the lane of snow, cleaning horse poo from the barn, mowing pastures, etc. After additional discussion we decided
that finding something big enough to do all of that, AND de-muck the pond would be a better choice. She found a mid-80's vintage
MF 50E industrial machine for sale on CL the next spring. ~65hp, 13k pounds, MFWD, hydrostatic drive over a 4-speed gearbox, cab,
heat, 3/4 yard bucket on a full-frame loader - a much more capable machine than any Class I, and the price was closer to the
low end of dirt guy's guesstimate than it was to the high end, so we bought it. What could go wrong, right?


4/18/13
I mentioned earlier telling dirt guy and neighbor guy to make sure the overflow from neighbor guy's new pond went into the old
pond and NOT into my front yard. We got a big rain, neighbor guy's pond overflowed, and this is what I found in my front yard
the next day. Yep, bullheads. In my yard. Unreal.


5/19/13
I started working muck out of the pond and of course the first thing I did was drop the front wheels off into the ditch where I
was dumping the first of the goo and got the tractor stuck. It was the first time getting stuck, but it would not be the last.
Note to self - get something on the rear TPH for a counter-weight. Pops came over with one of his old Minneapolis-Moline tractors
and we pulled it out. He thought it was funny. Jamie (my better half) just shook her head and went back to her flower garden.
I got another beer and went back to work. Looking back, I wish that I had bought one of those little click-counter gizmos before
starting this project so I could have kept track of how many bucket loads of dirt I hauled out of the pond.


5/20/13
I got a navigable approach scraped out on the shallow side of the pond in the area that served as the overflow,
and started working muck down to the clay. I made a bit of progress and then it rained.


5/20/13
It's not possible to operate efficiently in wet, slippery, clay, so I called it quits, and (very much prematurely)
congratulated myself on this first small victory.


5/21/13
Then it rained some more and filled up the hole that I'd excavated in the muck. OK, time to buy a trash pump, but first I need to
do some work on the tractor to fix up a few little problems that showed themselves after I started to work it hard. As such things
go when dealing with older machinery, one little fix reveals another problem and another problem and... After handing a bunch of
Benjamins to the parts guy at the MF dealer, and being broke down for most of the rest of the summer, I was no longer feeling even a
little bit smug. I tell myself that it's OK having to spend some money on repairs, because I'm still in for a whole lot less than I
would have been for a newer, smaller machine, and dirt guy isn't getting any of my $$$, but to be completely honest, I'm already starting
to question my ability to make a rational decision. By the time I was "done" fixing the tractor I realized that I'd forgotten to buy
a trash pump and Hip National Bank was broke. The hole had three feet of water in it so I admitted defeat and used the winter to regroup.


3/8/14
After spending some more money over the winter for repairs to Nanner, (that's what I named the tractor. what else
would you call something that's big and yellow?) I went back to digging. The spring of '14 was dry and I was able to
get around in the pond with little difficulty. I'd gone to the china tool store and picked up a $69.95 trash pump and
I'm moving in the right direction. Water coming out, muck coming out, Nanner working right, life is good.


5/8/14
The dry spring continued, and I'm feeling pretty good about my progress. I tell myself that I'm gaining.
But in between this photo and the one previous, I had a lack of situational awareness moment and smacked
the muffler on a tree limb. Did it break the $50 muffler? Nope. It broke the $1475 cast iron elbow piece
that connects the muffler to the exhaust manifold. You say that sounds a *wee bit* steep for ten pound
piece of cast iron? I thought so too. The parts guy at the MF dealer almost choked when he told me the
price. I took the busted pieces to a local welding shop and had it brazed back together. $80 fix. Told
myself to do a better job of keeping brain engaged when operating under overhanging tree limbs.


5/13/14
And then it rained again. So I start pumping again. But now the hole is a lot bigger and holds a lot more water.
Some tightwad was only willing to flip $69.95 on a cheap, scrawny, trash pump, but I'm a patient guy, and the pond
is still going to be there when the water is out, so I tell myself that it's all good and just do what I can, when I can.


9/30/14
By the end of September I'd managed to get a lot of muck out in between rains, but there is still a mountain of the
stuff left in there, and I'm starting to wonder if I've bitten off more than I can chew. The deeper I dig the heavier
the muck is getting, and I still haven't fashioned a proper counter weight. Cart before the horse...


10/2/14
And then it rained again. By this time it's taking *quite* awhile to get the water pumped out. There's only so much
water that can be shoved through a 3/4" garden hose by a $69.95 trash pump from the china tool store. I'm running the
pump pretty much 24/7 in hopes of getting some more muck out before winter sets in, and very much questioning my judgement.


10/8/14
I got it dried out enough to work around the sides of the water hole with Nanner, and managed to get a bit more muck out.
Then it rained again and I called it quits for the year.


End part 2.