Dozer at the farm pond

Still running the dozer at What Pond, The most important thing to keep in mind is getting the pond done properly and in a timely manner. Having a rain storm for three days is not good once the depth is being pushed out. Either waiting for it to dry or pumping it out will cost time or money. And money is what we’ll need for fuel, pipe, needed equipment, grass seed and needed accessories.

As mentioned in the last post. Starting at the tip of the island, we say island at this point, pushing out to the dam area. The task was to get down to depth whileusing the dug out clay fill for  building up the dam. At first this started out some what easy. Seeing the grade stake in the corner will help to visualize the depth of the pond while seeing the dam getting bigger.
After pushing out about the whole front end of the pond the depth was done and the dam had a ways to go to reach grade.

The next section to be pushed out was the right side. Further away from the house. Starting on the island and pushing towards the dam along with pushing out to the right side. With the earth piled up on the right side it was pushed along the side of the pond to finish grade along the side and excess continued to the dam to the dam.

Getting close to finishing the back right hand corner of the pond depth, the decision was made to make a peninsula instead of an island. What’s the big deal about that? We really didn’t want to build a bridge to the island, this would add more costs.

Guess what happens when you change the plan?

It creates more work, more time and energy. Now to find a new way of getting the earth moved to build the dam. Luckily we had a dump truck and backhoe to help with that part of it.
The next problem was found after pushing out the left side of the pond that there was not enough fill to finish the dam to a 3 to 1 grade. Making the grade Greater for easier mowing such as 4 to 1 grade. Now that there was not enough fill because of leaving the peninsula, it had to come from some where.
Guess what, the left side of the pond got bigger, the yard behind the house got leveled out and some areas of the watershed had a new grade and pushed back a little more.

Any thing can happen while building a farm pond. Stay tuned there is still more work to be done.