Hamstermann's pond build

[hamstermann]

Those are all good concerns.

The closer part of the hole is the bog so will have straight walls with no shelves. The part of the hole on the other side of the berm is still higher than the first shelf will be, for the most part, and yes that will have a retaining wall to allow the fish as close as possible to the patio and to allow more water volume.

The reach and the mini getting stuck is something I was worried about too, as is having it fall over if I drive it partially on the mud part and partially on the grass part.

I'm hoping that if I keep it on the grass and/or on the patio I can dig the full depth on the west and then back up and work eastward.

As far as the mini destroying the service lines, the new design of the pond avoids the utilities. If I get the main part of the pond dug to full depth and do all but the southernmost two feet of its width with the mini, I should be fine to finish off the last 2 feet of width with a shovel. That follows the recommendation of digging by hand within two feet either side of the utility markings.

Also, finding boulders in the excavation doesn't concern me much. Before my property was part of a subdivision it was farmland so large rocks would have been pulled out by the farmers before the land was regarded for a house and I'm assuming they used the excavated dirt from the house foundation to redo the grading, so I don't think there will be much there. Then again, I live on the benches of a mountain valley, so can't know for sure until the hole is at full w. But if I do find boulders, it would be great to do it with a machine that can extract them more easily than my shovel. And hey, free rocks to use in the pond!

 

[YShahar]

I'll dig the bog by hand while pondering whether it's better to shell out for a mini excavator and go through the added headache of where to put the dirt without changing the slope of the rest of the yard permanently, or to just save the money and continue digging by hand and hauling it away one $10 truckload at the dump at a time. Does the cheapskate in me win, or the Lazy in me win? Guess we'll find out.


I called around to see what a dirt dumpster would cost. They only let you put 2-4 tons in it or something and that's about the same weight my truck can haul so that's not happening.

Why not keep the soil to use elsewhere in the garden? You'll need a change in elevation to build your stream and bog, but you could also use it to build up a bit along the fence. Changes in level make a small space look much larger, so that soil could be very useful.

 

[GBBUDD]

The easiest pond to build is one with all retaining walls . this can make the project so much easier square corners straight walls everything one man sized rocks/ blocks. and lots of gravel by bucket. it could cut your work down 50%

 

[hamstermann]

It's been a good week, working with my family.

We're making some good progress on the bog now that it's stopped raining for 2 or 3 days. It looks like we're digging shelves in the bog, but we're not. We're going for depth and then will clean it up to have straight sides.

And to my surprise, no major rocks yet! Just hard clay. But rain is predicted for the next 2-3 days so that should soften again. Hopefully not to a thick gluey slime again, but we can take care of that even if it does.

Also ordered a liner and 2 layers of underlayment today. $1700 dollars of "ouch", but it's not as expensive as it could have been, I guess. Shipping says it's going to be about 400 pounds.

Why not keep the soil to use elsewhere in the garden? You'll need a change in elevation to build your stream and bog, but you could also use it to build up a bit along the fence. Changes in level make a small space look much larger, so that soil could be very useful.

I actually have a fairly large pile of top soil just for that, actually. a lot of this deeper clay isn't worth using for it.

So far my cheap side is overruling my lazy side and we've dug by hand and made several trips to the dump.

The easiest pond to build is one with all retaining walls . this can make the project so much easier square corners straight walls everything one man sized rocks/ blocks. and lots of gravel by bucket. it could cut your work down 50%

True. I want to at least use the piles of free rocks I have around the yard to make it look as natural as I can. I will use retaining wall block against the patio though.

 

[hamstermann]

Busy couple of days on Friday and Saturday. We tore out the path we'd just put in as we decided it wasn't really needed. Here's what it looked like before tear-out.

We also finished digging the bog!

After pulling out the retaining wall blocks, road base, and most of the weed-block cloth in the path we filled in the trench and dry-stacked the rocks, trying to make sure they didn't put pressure or weight on the fence and then started trying to slope the ground toward the pond, leaving space in the middle to build a waterfall.

 

[YShahar]

Busy couple of days on Friday and Saturday. We tore out the path we'd just put in as we decided it wasn't really needed. Here's what it looked like before tear-out.


We also finished digging the bog!
View attachment 162687


After pulling out the retaining wall blocks, road base, and most of the weed-block cloth in the path we filled in the trench and dry-stacked the rocks, trying to make sure they didn't put pressure or weight on the fence and then started trying to slope the ground toward the pond, leaving space in the middle to build a waterfall.

Looking good!

 

[Pablo]

Wow, you are making progress. Have to say you do the neatest digging ever, lol.

 

[hamstermann]

Rented a 1-ton mini excavator and made a mess of my yard today:

I had it for about 5 hours and only sort of got the hang of it before I had to take it back and move on to my next pond prep activity: buying 108 milk crates for my bog!

Check out the redneck engineering. When some of the ropes on the cargo net don't reach the bottom, just zip tie them to the ones that do! (And pray that nothing comes loose and/or causes an accident on the freeway).

Now I get to sit back and worry about the rain that's predicted for the next 3 days turning my newly loosened soil into slime.

 

[GBBUDD]

Rented a 1-ton mini excavator and made a mess of my yard today:

I had it for about 5 hours and only sort of got the hang of it before I had to take it back and move on to my next pond prep activity: buying 108 milk crates for my bog!

View attachment 162902

Check out the redneck engineering. When some of the ropes on the cargo net don't reach the bottom, just zip tie them to the ones that do! (And pray that nothing comes loose and/or causes an accident on the freeway).

Now I get to sit back and worry about the rain that's predicted for the next 3 days turning my newly loosened soil into slime.

do not let the rains turn your soil to mud. spend the money get a tarp big enough to cover the WHOLE area and a small sump pump. you might say it's not worth it until its a mess and then it's almost too late

 

[hamstermann]

I looked at sump pumps yesterday at harbor freight. Either they were only for clear water, or they were solids/trash pumps that sit 3-4 to inches off the ground so would leave that much water when they stop pumping,which seems useless. Plus the solids pumps all had float switches instead of just turning on when plugged in like I wanted. Guess I'll see what I can find online.


What's the trick to having the excavator leave clean vertical sides instead of loose dirt slides like I did?

 

[GBBUDD]

What's the trick to having the excavator leave clean vertical sides instead of loose dirt slides like I did?

the direction of the pull from the excavator if you want a sharp vertical wall . its hand tool time OR you can dig a trench where you want the wall the turn and remove the material to dig out the pond straddling the trench. it doesn't need to be a float switch pump . you can make a hole in the lowest point so all the water drains there and with a bucket sized depression all water gets removed but a puddle

 

[Pablo]

I take back that comment about you having the neatest digging, lol. There is a learning curve to using machinery like that which is hard when you have limited time due to the rental. Dont worry about the fact that it is messy, the excavator is meant to take care of the heavy work and you go back afterwards to finish it off by hand. Pros with years of experience behind the machine can be neat but you cannot expect to be perfect in the first five hours. Good luck with the rain, we have been dealing with freeze warnings here trying to protect some new plants.

 

[hamstermann]

I take back that comment about you having the neatest digging, lol. There is a learning curve to using machinery like that which is hard when you have limited time due to the rental. Dont worry about the fact that it is messy, the excavator is meant to take care of the heavy work and you go back afterwards to finish it off by hand. Pros with years of experience behind the machine can be neat but you cannot expect to be perfect in the first five hours. Good luck with the rain, we have been dealing with freeze warnings here trying to protect some new plants.

Haha. Thanks for the encouragement and good luck with your plants. When we get freeze warnings here, we cover the plants with milk jugs with the bottoms cut off or walls of water. I'm not sure that would work for pond plants though.

 

[hamstermann]

Tarp sorted.

 

[hamstermann]

Tarp wasn't long enough so the weight of the water pulled the tarp down despite the rocks we put around the edges. Ah well, maybe I can time things so that it's not clay slime but there's still enough water in the ground to make it soft so it's not like digging through cement. Silver linings.