Thank you all for the replies. I'm still weighing all of my options, and I know a pond isn't something you want to do half-assed. With the quality of dirt I think I have, I'm very confident in its ability to both hold water and stay compacted. I'm leaning towards just having someone pile up some dirt to create a dam, compact it really good, and hope for the best.
I definitely need to do some burning, thank you for that recommendation. Some guy wanted to charge me $2500 just to push all the downed trees and brush into the bowl and burn it. Yes, he's a reputable contractor, but that's a lot of money in my opinion. Either way, that will probably be step 1.
Looking at the prices I posted, I guess I was thinking to myself, for $700 a week, even if I only rented a smaller piece of equipment, that I could get it done in that time frame. I'm not sure what the going rate would be to hire an equipment operator but I'll probably figure that out before I embark on this new endeavor.
