Pond Upgrade

[TheOldOak]

Decided the pond just wanted big or deep enough. Didn't have the cash to build it the size I wanted when we first had it done about 6 years ago. Fast forward 6 years. Amazing what you can do with a little Kubota tractor. It is a Kubota with attitude though, it believes it is a bulldozer, haha. About 25 hours on the tractor with box blade and FEL working, amazing the amount of dirt you can move. Only about spilled it into the pond once. Close call made me realize slow and steady wins the race on this stuff. Turned into a much larger project than I initially thought. Just need it to rain now, Indiana has missed most of the recent showers, dry as a bone which actually worked in my favor as the pond was already down 18 inches. Check out the picture show.

 

[catscratch]

Pics?

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[TheOldOak]

Couple of pics before this project by started.

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[TheOldOak]

Early stages.

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[TheOldOak]

Dam stage, raised it about four feet, which took an incredible amount of dirt to build the backwall. Took the dirt from around the edges, fortunately the dirt is mostly clay in this spot and holds water great.

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[TheOldOak]

Final stages of dam. Didn't take a whole pond picture yet, but you get the idea. Watered in oats and clover seed, I never miss an opportunity to create a new food plot, LOL.

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[THE LLC]

Hope you got good compaction.

 

[Drycreek]

Hope you got good compaction.

This ^^^^^, plus I hope you skinned the vegetation off of the dam before you added the dirt. If not, you may be in for a surprise. I don’t mean to criticize but dirt needs to go onto dirt to really bind. The optimum would have been to strip off the vegetation, scarify the dam, then add your fill in 8” to 1’ lifts. The only compaction you probably got was where your tires actually rolled. That may be enough, and then it may not. Good luck, you cannot have too much water for the most part.