pond in progress started 4/21/10

[addy1]

After my husband passed, I left my pond in Arizona to move to Maryland to marry one wonderful guy.

We have a great wooded / grass lot, but very sloped, hard to mow. A ton of shale just inches below what little dirt we have, which is also maryland clay. It is hard to even dig a hole for a plant. My honey watched and helped me dig holes to attempt to put in plants. He decided this ex workaholic / early retired new wife needed something to keep busy with and out of trouble.

So! For our first anniversary pressie he bought me a kubota. Needless to say I have been digging every since.

The utility trench was dug on 4/21, two months later slowly getting there.

Here are some of the beginning shots. The yard before being attacked by the tractor, and of course the planning drawing. The dotted line is the utility trench.

More progress to come and of course photos.

 

[addy1]

So with little tractor experience I started digging up the back yard. First the utility trench, then the HOLE. With the slope we have, I learned real quickly level is not level unless you actually use a level. Slope can fool your eyes big time.

Even the tractor dug crooked unless you leveled the beginning of the dig. I had hubby cracking up, to figure out level I put magnetic levels on the front of the tractor.

We figured on a 6-8 foot wall of dirt to make the pond level. So to help out dug down the top slope by 2-3 feet, and put the dirt on the lower slope. Ended up with a berm of dirt 3-4 foot high. We also had a side to side slope, but at least not as bad.

The first bucket of dirt, tractor getting deeper after many hours of bucket work. The stream dug in the hill switch-backing to keep the stream from being rapids because of the slope. The finished product a few days ago. The slope with stream, planted (before the liner put in)
but it was getting hot hot hot so had to get the plants in the ground.

 

[addy1]

The the liner arrived! On to the next stage of progress. (Totally forgot what a pain it was to install liners)
Working slow because of the heat here, early am only. Been hitting in the 90's with humidity, just no rain.

Well darn not lettin me upload any more pictures, something about a security token, will be back later lol

 

[Pondmaster]

addy1 thank you for your post. You would get along well with my lovely wife who thoroughly enjoys ponding. I am also an early retiree---well sort of and own a tractor with a woods subframe backhoe attachment. If I had bought it when I was younger I would be much younger now.
I found It takes a little time to get good on the backhoe. Your husband is a real sweet heart for buying you that tractor.

 

[addy1]

Using carpet pad for underlayment, the liner requires only raked dirt, but we have too many rocks. Best tool to have for this project a laser level.

The pond has water! of course we knocked over a bucket of rocks into the water, that were dirty, oh well.

 

[addy1]

addy1 thank you for your post. You would get along well with my lovely wife who thoroughly enjoys ponding. I am also an early retiree---well sort of and own a tractor with a woods subframe backhoe attachment. If I had bought it when I was younger I would be much younger now.
I found It takes a little time to get good on the backhoe. Your husband is a real sweet heart for buying you that tractor.

He was looking for a used one, but decided he would rather get me a new one so I would not get hurt. Love zero interest for 6 years............lol............

Yeah the backhoe takes a little time, like a friend says ......seat time.... You have a nice looking piece of equipment there.

With our incline, I learned real quick to only be straight up or down the hill, no sideways digging. The backhoe would just drag the tractor down hill if you are sideways and digging, even with all the weight on the out riggers. And it is scary! well at least for me.

It was a choice I retire and move to Maryland, or he retire and moved to Arizona........I won........lol We met in a chat room, not dating site, instant connection.

 

[addy1]

We are very slowly filling the pond, our well is good, but why take a chance.

Now onto the stream, trying to make straight liner fit a non straight stream with multiple ponds and waterfalls. The black liner so hot you can't touch it without gloves.

Stream path without any liner, 20 to 25 degree incline. Figured out it is easier to put in liner without plants around, but too hot to move them right now.

First leg of stream near the pond, 16 feet with a 9x9 pond, we even got water into today and it did not leak. The other legs of the stream, from 12 feet to 19 feet long, with 5 more ponds, with waterfalls into each little pond. The little ponds are all going to have pea gravel and plants to act as filters. None of the liner is tucked in, all is just loose laid until we do a preliminary water run from the top. The stream is going to begin right at our deck near the house. (once we finish the plumbing!)

As far as we have gotten, still have a ton of work to do, but it is fun.

 

[Pondmaster]

You won't have to buy any rock. You have been busy it will be interesting to see the finished project.

 

[addy1]

I picked up some nice river rock from Fish that he removed from his pond. We have been picking up field stone from a lot in pa. And of course all of our own stone that is being dug up.

One of the many piles of rock this dig has created.

I have never lived where I have had land to be able to do what we are doing, this is so much fun!

 

[addy1]

Pondmaster, thanks for your interest in this project.............I am having a lot of fun working on it, I figured it would take all summer to get it running.

Tested the stream today from top to bottom. We had to adjust two of the little ponds, liner goofs.........lol. But other than that water flowed just as we hoped.

a little hard to see the last picture shows water flowing
(from garden hose) into multiple ponds heading towards the big guy.

 

[lotust1]

very cool setup. I like it allot.

 

[Pondmaster]

Do you know approx. what the total gallons will end up being including falls, shallows and ponds?

 

[addy1]

Ummmmmmmm no but i will attempt to get the info. It has been a moving target, changed as I dug, redesigned, fixed flow issues, now that it is more stable may be able to figure it out.

 

[addy1]

Ok went out and did soft measurements.

10 lil ponds, from 5.75 gallons to 225 gallons. total 604 gallons, small ponds not counting water in stream. The smallest ponds (5 gallons), i am going to dig a little deeper before the liner is permanent, they ended up being 6-8 inches deep after putting in the carpet pad.

large pond 8859
bog filter (without gravel, less water with gravel of course) 2450 the filter is 27 x 6 x 2 ft
(picture is bog)

11913 gallons, approximately

 

[DrDave]

I admire your tenacity. This is going to be amazing once finished. Making it look natural is going to be fun and challenging but I can see you are up to it.