# The Anatomy of a Pond.. from Start to finish



## guest

I thought some may find these pics of interest...

We moved into our place in 1998, initially i did not want the back yard cleared but decided to add a pond.. 

Heres a pic of the before: 
<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/BRUSHPIL.JPG>

i basically cut down the trees and asked anyone who wanted the wood to come on by.. thios was from 5/2000


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## guest

As you can see it looked pretty ratty...

The pond was done in 3 steps.. the reason was mostly financial.. 

In the 1st step.. my excavator guy, cleared and stumped the back of the back yard and burried the stumps... We shook the stumps and saved that loam and also scraped the loam layer off of the yard for later use...

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-840X.JPG>


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## guest

more scraping burying and piling of loam..

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-845X.JPG>


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## guest

in the 1st phase.. the general shape of my pond was dug just a foot deep..

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-012X.JPG>

The reason for the odd shape was, i had had some stumps burried at another time, and the pond was sort of dug around the burried stumps...


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## guest

*1st signs of a pond...*

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-013X1.JPG>


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## guest

In the 2nd phase.. the stumps had been burried, the rest of the ground was scraped of surface loam and piled up.. as you can see, we are on clay..


<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-041X.JPG>


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## guest

My excavator guy, dug the pond hole.. I am on wetland or natural low spots so the pond easily took on water.. 
actually the guy said he saw 2 springs bubbling up water while he dug...

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-042X.JPG>


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## guest

I had to travel this day and missed out on most of the fun.. here is the end of stage 2.. the pond was dug and it filled in with water within 2 days... 
if you see that rock on the pic above in the pond.. i used that to gage the water flow.. it covered the rock in a day.. plenty of water..

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-049X.JPG>

All the yard loam was piled and the clay yard was left to dry out a little


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## guest

Stage III:
sorry if the pics take a long time to download...

In this stage the excavator spread all the yard loam and get a level of loam on all the yard..

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-062X.JPG>


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## guest

you see the water filled in nicely.. it was still clay colored but that went away as soon as it settled..

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-065X.JPG>


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## guest

as you can see, it looked good.. level, decent loam but it was full of roots and sticks..

It was going to take me 3 years to pull those sticks.. maybe a york rake would have helped.. but i'd gone this far.. I wanted grass.. and i wanted it now!!!

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-072X.JPG>


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## guest

Being a fat lazy american.. I decided to go the easy route.. 
I got my excavator guy to dump 100 yards of screened loam..

I had him put a coat of loam on top of the yard loam..

I initially had him try his dozer (per my request) but it was way too wet.. 

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-101F.JPG>


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## guest

I also hired the guys nephew to follow the excavator around as he spread the loam and pull out any of the bigger sticks.. 

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-109S.JPG>


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## guest

This Guy is a master with his machines.. he does awesome work.. if you can see, he spread the loam with the excavator but its so smooth it looks like it was done with a dozer..

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-118S.JPG>


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## guest

one more pic.. 

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-119X.JPG>


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## guest

If you see the line of rocks in the back of the photo.. That was the natural spot where water would flow.. so i had him pile the rocks and dig it out so its sort of a stream (that does not really go anywhere) 

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-132L.JPG>


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## guest

Finally done... 

Now time for grass.. 
<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-291L.JPG>


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## guest

you can still see how wet the soil is.. i never had to water the grass once.. 

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-295L.JPG>


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## guest

one more pic:

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-294L.JPG>


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## guest

one year later...

plus i had a little more of the yard cleared to the left...

<img src=http://www.apartofme.com/images/MVC-164X.JPG>


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## guest

again sorry to all of you dialup internet folks for all the pics 


Here is a link with a few more details..

a few more details and pics... as if you have not seen enough already!!!


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## Live Oak

It sure turned out nice! :thumbsup: How is the fishin"?


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## guest

i put brook trout in there last year.. the 1st year i put bass in but decided to go for brook trout.. so i fished out all the bass - that was a pain in the ass.. the ice just melted off of the pond i have not seen any fish activity yet.. if the trout survived great.. if not, i may throw some more bass in there.. 



i like the trout becuase the feed off of the fish pellets so its cool watching them rise and jump out of the pond while feeding.. 

theres lots of wildlife out there so i do not know.. an otter could devistate the pond or a fisher or blue herron.. so, who knows i am waiting to see if any made it...


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## leolav

Seems like a nice job. How deep is the pond??

Nice yard too SJ.


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## guest

my excavator guy is awesome.. i think ive probably put his first kid through college with all the work ive given him.. But he dug the pond (per my request) as just a big deep hole.. he estimated 6-8 feet in the middle


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## aegt5000

Great Pictures.
This was a serious project. Your photo sequence give us a good 
feel for how much effort went into this. Took some vision too.
The pond blend right into the yard, it turned out so good that now 
it looks like it was always there. :thumbsup:


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## Stewart

Wow, I am impressed! That looks real cool! How much property do you have?


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## Gromulus

*Thank you!*

What a great project. Thank you for sharing!

How deep is the pond? We have a "pond" out back but it is only about 3' deep. I often think about having it dredged deeper.


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## guest

thanks, the ponds 6-8 ft deep.. 
Stewart, we are on 4.9 acres but i lucked out when i bought here.. i was the 1st in the subdivision.. so i picked this lot.. because there are 38 acres of association land and most of it is behind and around our property.. so we are in a development.. but from the back all we see are woods.. 

"Maine, the way life should be"

PS:
theres more details and pics at this link..

pond page


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## Stewart

That is sure a bit to take care of. I call my yard work therapy and am going to write it off on my taxes!!!!!! Just kidding I would have a hard time finding someone to buy off on that deduction! 

The pond and yard look great, it shows all your hard work!:cheers: 

You never pass up a chance to show off your tractor, good job!

Just curious how much is 5 acres going for in your neck of the woods? 

There is 5 acres beside us here and the guy wants $100k for it, I think he is on some form of drugs since you can't even build on the back 2.5 acres due to a pump jack on the property beside that!!!


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## guest

Stew: the land came with the house/development in a package.. i think they estimated the land as being worth around 30K, but that was 6 years ago.. prices up here have gone crazy since then... its mostly wetland and that translates to Bugs/misquitos...
but id rather bugs than people in my back yard... 


I initially moved up here from mass, because i wanted to live in the country and could not afford or did not want to mortgage my life away like you have to do in mass.. but the high prices are creeping up to maine too..


technically I did not do too much.. it was the excavator.. i just 
paid the bill.. OUCH!!!!!


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## Stewart

It still looks nice! Are those bug torches of some sort in some of the pictures?


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## jodyand

Man sj thats a nice pond nice pictures too a little large you need to resize them a little. I hate to have to move the pictures from left to right and up and down:lmao: 
Jody


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## guest

> _Originally posted by Stewart _
> *It still looks nice! Are those bug torches of some sort in some of the pictures? *


Stew: bird feeders... 

Jody: yeah, i see how big they are.. i pulled them from my site.. ill try to mess with resizing....


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## leolav

Looks good SJ. I live in the country also. This morning, I was taking our beagle out and right in the field in back of our house was AT LEAST 15-20 deer grazing in the field. My beagle howled her ass off at them and they scattered, but thats something you would never see in the city or suburbs.

Can't wait to get outside this weekend.


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## Chipmaker

My land is essentially like yours, Simple_John. Water table is always high and it don't take much depth until you get ground water flowing in the hole. When I had my first pond dug back in the 80's I contracted with a fellow who was going to scrap[e off all the top soil, and use a earth moving pan in conjucntion with his dozer to dig it. I had a dozer at the time as well, but it was not my cup of tea to have to push all that dirt away since most of it would not be used again, as I did not really have an area to keep it all, and having to push it all was a ot of work as compared to scooping it and dumping it in a truck etc, which I could not do. Well he arrived and moved his equipment in , and started. You could see the ground floating with his earth mover pan operating, and the next thing he was stuck. In the process of using his dozer to unstick himself, he managed to stick his dozer as well. We eventually got his dozer unstuck using mine, and then we got his pan unstuck. Not an easy job at all. It did not take long until be knew it was not going to be possible to do any digging unless we used a tracked hoe or dragline. So he borrowed a huge JD trackhoe, and we dug the pond to a depth a deep as this hoe would reach. It was JD's largest model of trackhoe, and depth was around 20 some feet total. He would scoop the dirt and I would push it away, as this was the only way we could do it. IN the end I wound up keeping all the removed dirt anyhow, but still would not have been able to dig it myself with my little D4 Cat due to the water table. As fast as he would take a bucket of dirt out, it would start to fill in. Within 2 days of finishing the pond it was completely filled with water just from the ground water alone, no rain. It has yet to get low even during times of dry weather and drought. Strange thing is the creek that flows through my property about 300 feet from the pond will go completely dry during late summer if there was a dry season, and ground water does not fill any portion of it. But my pond remains full. It was because the creek would dry up in summer that prompted me to buy the D4 so I could straighten out and grade the creek bed and banks. The creek made so many real hard S bends just getting from point A to point B accross my property it was always getting clogged up and coming out of its banks in a hard long rain, and flooding my fields. So the land commision here and I fiigured it would eliminate this problem if the bed got straightened up and all those S curves were removed. So I have most of that problem solved now, and it does not overflow the banks unless we have a very very ong period of hard heavy continuous rainfall, and then it only floods one lower section of field, which I can live with instead of having it flood right up to my pond and barn. In a way its good, as I get everyone elses topsoils deposited on my lower field now, and over the years that field is slowly getting higher in elevation with nice soil


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## Ingersoll444

AWSOME pic's John. Looks real nice. I got a TON of yard/woods work to do myself, so it is nice to see how it can look AFTER


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