The project begins

[FountainMan]

Today my dad and I begin working on the pond. Today we dug a trench for the foundation for a retention wall that boarders the pond. This marks the progress to the big dig! So hopefully this shouldn't take too long. Still waiting on the power cord to the Kasco fountain. As the project moves along I'll be posting pictures until finish. So keep watching!

 

[FountainMan]

It's been a while since I last been active here on the forum. I've finally convinced my dad to let me have a 30' x 30' space for a pond. Going into college in September so right now I'm financially under the gun. Also it's to hot outside to do anything. I'm thinking in September when I'm more financially free I'm going to start with a temporary installation. As a temporary installation I'm going to hold off on the 500$ EPDM for a while. Instead I'm going to fashion together some black painters plastic. They come in 40' x 10' rolls. This is how I started my current pond by starting cheap to get a feel for the pond before finalizing it with a huge purchase. The pond will also only be a few inches deep. Deeper in the center to allow for the Kasco fountain installation. I'm looking close to a Kidney shaped pond. I'm also thinking of taking the excavated dirt and burying the edges of the liner to look like a natural edge pond. The other dirt will be used to create a berm along the other edge of the pond to take advantage of the slope and add a few more inches of depth. Doing this I should get a general idea of what the final product will look like. I'm in the process of plotting the project on Google Sketch up. The pond will also aid in runoff. So I'm thinking of a pond 30' long by 12' wide but only about 14" deep in the center the rest of the pond about 4-6".

Anyway here are the plans. If it weren't for the heat and money I'd begin today but those are prohibitive variables. But in September I will post here as the project begins.

I attached another photo of the plan. Sorry it's another one of those paint drawings. Nothing too fancy. I also attached a photo of the fountain.

 

[FountainMan]

Excitement got the better of me. I've begun the dig today. I'll get photos.

 

[FountainMan]

Took all day but I got the pond dug out. Now for the liner.

 

[FountainMan]

I used the excavated dirt to build a berm on the edge of the pond. I'm going to wait a month for the dirt to settle and become solid. If I tried to line it and fill it right now the berm would become unstable and give away causing an unwanted manmade flash flood. So I'm going to wait for the dirt to naturally stabilize and settle. I took measurements and the pond comes to 30' long 18' wide and 15' across in the main section. I went with a 2 lobed pond with a narrow channel where a bridge will eventually go. In about a month of 2 after the dirt settles the liner goes in and the beast gets filled. I'm hoping the pond will also attract ducks in the fall.

 

[FountainMan]

Was digging and hit a sprinkler pipe. Fortunately didn't hit it to hard do I didn't wind up with a geyser but looks like this will delay the pond some more until we can hire someone to work the pipe out of the pond. Makes me smoken mad. Last night I was fantasizing how the pond would look. Now I have a hole in the yard. can't do anything until the pipes get rerouted which could throw a few more months into this thing. Now it looks like a sink hole opened up in the yard. What a day.