neighbor let us borrow the backhoe !

Well starting at about 8:30 pm the neighbor said we could use the back hoe until noon today..even gave us diesel.

so Joel started digging like a mad man..

our pond is shallow in most areas and full of cattails..but there was a low field on the North (where contractors had removed the topsoil and water would stand if the area flooded..but otherwise it was field)

Well Joel hauled the backhoe over there last night and started diggin a new pond..that would attach when he broke through..to the old pond on the North.

he dug the sides nearly straight up and down and quite deep..around 4'..as we didn't have time to go deeper really.

well he got an area about 30 x 40 ' or so dug and broke through to the other pond and it filled up nicely..didn't do too bad on bringing down the water level of our pond that was there..as the water level was way high to begin with with our flooding weather we have been having.

so now we hav added that much more to the pond..and he has 3 more hours on the backhoe this morning..he is going to start around 9 am digging and i'm not sure what all he is going to do..i know the new part he dug will be enlarged..so the water will be murkey for a long time..as he has to dig away at the edges and then break through as he is digging..so digging wet stuff.

but that is how it had to be done with the shortish reach of the backhoe..even though it has the hydrolic extender on it it doesn't reach too far.

photos will follow later..right now i only have photos of the before.

I am sooo jealous!!!

well Joel buggered up his leg doing all the backhoe and tractor work (clutch) and has a knee brace on today..so a lot of my dirt..will set..until he can get on the tractor again..or i figure out how to use it...NOT !

first photo shows the north shallow edge of the old pond to the right..facing east..and the field area just north of the old pond
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the next photo is the same field farther North..this is where we started digging last night..we dug for 1 1 /2 hours last night
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Here are two pictures that shows what we got done in one and a half hours last night..the first picture is closest to the old pond..we just barely broke through so the old pond would fill the new dig.
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the above picture corresponds to the first picture at the far top..note the same bush
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this  photo corresponds to photo two at the top..this is where we made the first digs..last night.

on a reply i will post photos of today's dig..

when we started this morning we were promised to have the backhoe for 3 hours..didn't happen..we started digging about 9:30 am..hoping to finish up by noon..but they came over and wanted the backhoe back after we only got in another hour of digging..thank God Joel was hurrying..

here are pictures from the SW ..I was standing about 2/3 of the way north of the south end of the old pond looking NE toward the new dig area..beyond the backhoe is all new..you can see where he is taking out the division between the old pond closer to me and the new farther.
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a liittle more of the division opening up on the next couple photos..
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the next picture is standing looking toward the east like in the photos above..but I was standing farther back..as where those pictures were taken above are now under water.
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after he worked on that area he was planning on taking the backhoe around the pond perimeter and removing cattails and making it deeper..i dont' have that photographed..he got to the place where i was standing for the above photos at the top..and the guy asked for the backhoe back..so he only got about 1/3 of the way around the rest of the pond

i was standing on a peninsula that juts out into the OLD pond area at about the 1/2 way mark..there is a deep hole there..about 7 feet deep..Joel had made it to that hole and was working on the peninsula when the guy came..so he had to stop..he left the peninsula all tore up and will have to repair the rest of the work with the tractor bucket and backblade..

we forgive and forget and move on..should have had another hour..we had paid for.

anyway..the last two photos are where i was working on the new edges and bank..attempting to stabilize the edge and get a path to walk on ..as start anyway..

put in a few rocks and a few plants to stabilize the bank in case of rain..
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we still have a lot of work on the banks..stabilizing..lowering..going to be taking out some trees and putting the banks levelled out into the woods (low boggy)..and  on the far side the flag marks a weeping willow that had to get it's roots back into the ground..a baby..

there are h geranium, ladys mantle hostas, violets, filipendula, etc already planted..and my 3 baby winterberries got dug up and replanted..

I don't really like big diggers and noisy machines but it's just such a pleasure to see a job like this done quickly without backbreaking effort.

The shape already looks good, fantastic work !!

I bed you're dying for the mud to settle and the plants to grow.   

the OLD pond was shaped like a figure 8..with an island in the narrow spot between the top and bottom of the 8 where it came close on both sides..so it WAS like 2 fairly large ponds with a narrow center and peninsulas going out toward the island on both sides..

so when he started digging the new section it was like another 0 on top of the figure 8..but then he took out the left side of the dirt between the two..so now it is a kinda large C shape or sickle shape..the new part is curved from left to right toward the old part..then below is the island and peninsula..and then below that is a big round circle pond..
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the only parts in the photographs are the dark blue and the very tippy top of the top part of the light blue where the cattails are in the photo

the top of the new part is more curved than my diagram..but i didn't mess with the lines too much..the top right hand side tends to curve up toward the top more..in the diagram than i've drawn..

I have found myself taking a plastic lawn chair back under some aspen trees by the new enlarged area of the pond and just sitting and watching the frogs and the turtles and a redwing blackbird that has a nest in the cattails that Joel left in the pond
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you can't see much but I KNOW there are babies in there.

this is my view from where my plastic chair sits right now
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this looks out to the east toward the open field..I also have a nice view of my son's house..the back of it...across the cattails of the rest of the pond to the south..the pond is about 200' long but you really can only see the closest part from this view as there are islands and cattails that block the view..
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I took this picure sitting in my chair last night while Joel was beginning to remove the peninsula that was built up about 4' above grade and was full of old steel fenceposts..wire and sod and tree roots and mess.

well last night he got that all done..i don't have a daylight photo as we worked until 10:30 last night..but here is him finishing up..before we went to bed..I'll check it out later this morning
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We have a hammock still in the box..and there is a nice grove of good size aspens here that overlook the pond that we could put the hammock under..so i'm thinking of assembling that for hubby for father's day and putting it back here..if it would be out of the way of Joel's tractor antics..but also we have a 2 seater covered swing i thought would be ideal for back here..as it is such a nice peaceful spot..frogs croaking, blackbirds squawking, turtles sunning themselves..and when the water clears up i'll get some feeder fish to put in there to eat mosquito larvae..right now it is just the frogs..and a few minnows that managed to sneak in somehow..in the future we hope to get an artesian well flowing to the pond..and an overflow drain to the creek..but for now it is just fed by the groundwater and springs.

that is great brenda! I hope you get your little hideaway set up. I would vote for the two seater swing. but me and hammocks don't get along! I always wondered how everyone on gilligans island could sleep in hammocks when I was a kid

yeah no photos yet, but i did put out the 2 seater swing with an awning on it..and it is great..today I got 50 little baby feeder goldfish and put in the pond..this isn't a pond with freshwater inlet other than springs..so i have no chance of regular fish at this time..I bought an austrian pine, an alberta spruce and a juniper and put in my little garden along the pond edge..and replaced the 4 dead waterlilies with 4 that appear to be alive..we'll see.

so my little retreat is taking shape nicely..

Well some of you might remember last year we enlarged and deepened part of our pond and we had piles and piles of clay, sand, muck, cattail roots, topsoil, etc piled about 6 to 8' deep and higher North of the pond addition and south of the woods.

this is a picture right after it was dug and i raked a path along the side a little to be able to see the fish and put in the water lilies.

Well yesterday Joel decided to come over and see how much he could "flatten" it out..i had raked some paths so it was easier for him to get the tractor up on top..and this is a little photo montage of what he got done yesterday..


as he was getting started, pushing the soil off to the west toward the field and to the north towards the woods.




also the pond was seeping through on the north where there was soft swampy land, so he pushed some of the clay soil over the seepage area and made a sort of dam to stop the seepage, which gives it another foot to foot and a half that the water level can come up to..which makes me happy as the new dig had dropped my pond level by that far..so thenow shallower areas will fill back up..the pond is 8 years old but the North half new dig is just since last summer.



he only got it about half done, but a lot better than the previous piles..eventually we will work out toward the woods into more forest gardening..what was a swamp now will be more usable soil..he pushed over a bunch of the dying alder and wild cherry and buried it under the dirt..which is good soil..a few aspen trees are damaged from the work and will have to come out but there are a lot of healthy ones as well as the wild cherry and alder, ash, maple, and i have planted black walknut, butter nut, carpathian walnut and 2 hardy pecans ..i have a lot of fruit trees coming, may put a few of them in this area if it is finished enough to plant when they come..ifnot..i'll just order more..i did plant a willow and a few small evergreens and some ground cover and flowers along the pond edge, but most of them aren't seen in the photos

in that last photo you can see the one seedling apple tree ..far to the right by where he built the dam..that had the early really sweet russety apples. ...still have to clean the alders out from around it.

will be nicer to access it when this dam is finished too.



i'm standing up on the partially flattened bank here looking west toward the field..that is the top part of the figure 8 shaped pond on the upper right hand side of the 8..a new area..


I'm really looking foward to the tractor work to be done so i can get busy planting..i'm not a patient person but with Joel working 60 hours plus a week, he has so little time to help me.

This looks great Brenda, you can see all the way down into your pond.

Now all you need is some big rocks to put around and you'll be Sepp-ing in style.

part of the shallower water is edged in rocks, we don't have a lot of rocks in our land so when we find some we save them..they are in my  gardens and along the water..i put a lot of flat ones along the shallows for places for the water critters to rest ..like turtles and frogs..to sun themselves..in the gardens they hold heat and add some structure.

when i went back out there this afternoon, the soil that had been graded was hard as a rock..it is nearly all solid clay but had broken down some over winter..but the broken down part Joel moved with the tractor..and now has laid bare more wettish clay..and it overnight hardened right up..so it will have to break down more yet before we can work with it again.

wish he had gotten more done..but working 60 hours a week i was lucky he got done what he did..may be another year before he finishes it and honestly i sure hate to leave it bare..but if that is what it needs to "break down" ..then i guess i'll have to..it will all get all torn up again next time he works on it..but i'd sure love to cover it with something !!

well we are having a really bad drought here, it is well into two years now..and it is bad.

my  large pond has two areas that still have water ..the deepest areas..but the rest of it is either mud or bone dry.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26835&id=1846485863&l=fa4540627d


this weekend Joel took the tractor with the brushog on it and he brushhogged down about 3/4 of the cattails in the shallow area of the pond (leaving some yes, and some have birds nests still in them so he was careful).

then he went and put the backblade on the tractor and went back down into the pond and backbladed and scooped out some of the not so level areas of the pond..humpy areas left by the backhoe last year.

he made 3 large roads across the base of the pond..bone dry there..and took that dirt out and filled some of the non level areas in the field with it..

we are planning on renting a backhoe over the labor day weekend and digginig the shallowest areas of the pond much much much deeper..probably anotehr 4 to 6 feet deeper than they are now..the deep areas have never gone completely dry..so we figure this will be helpful to maintain the pond life, having most of the pond a lot deeper..so this will be a 3 day weekend dig..can't want to have that done..we have an island in the middle so i walked out there and cut down some dying alder trees off of the island and hauled the brush out..also mowed around the far side of our pond that we didn't have access to.

so now that area is a shady part of lawn so that we can sit there and enjoy the pond (when it actually has water in it)

the two areas that still have water are still in good shape..the fish and frogs are fine and the water lilies are still in full bloom..wierd to have most of the pond so dry you can walk in fip flops on bare ground..and the rest full of water and life..but it will be nice to have it deeper next yer..hate to say it but i'm  praying for a lot of rain and snow..basically water to come AFTER Labor day weekend..to fill it up after we get it dug deeper..and yes he'll be careful not to disturb the already deep wet areas..we'll leave like a dam of clay between them so those areas don't drain into thenewly  dug areas..

We are also suffering from lack of water.  Our summer has been unusually hot and very,very dry.It hasnt rained in our area since mid may! this is not normal! we are in the east of Finland in the main lake area,close to Russia which has been sitting in a high for months now (they have been suffering with intense heat,no rain and forest fires).  As you watch the weather forcast rain clouds either come up from the south or west but just before they reach us they doge around us! aggg...
Our wells are down to around half a meter, so lucky for us because we live close to the lake we can collect water for the animals and vegetables. the temp has been hovering between 27oc and 37oc!!! now thats hot!
Our poor sheep! luckily they are mostly in forest,but its even hot in there now.

We are now planning  on ways to store rainwater, a water tower behind the barn( its in the shade so its perfect), we have an old concrete tank under the barn we can also use,also we are gointo build a couple of swales on the crest of our veggie hill. From now on its going to be rainwater for the washing machine and shower.

The veggies have suffered from lack of water and the intense heat,our grain crops are just about ok, the yeild will be lower than normal but thats not a problem for us. We got one good cut of hay but the second cut was almost none existant!
We are just hoping that we do get rain in the autumn and that winter doesnt come early! its a challenge at times!

well our well is still producing..my son thinks that the two areas that are holding water in the pond are probably where our water table is now..which would be down about 2' from where it usually is..so we are in a generally high water table area..thank God..as our trees are still alive..with their deep roots..but some of the trees like the aspens and even lilac bushes have "crispy" leaves..we do really need some rain.

this is our second year of drought..we do get some rain, but just not enough..

i want rain but really  now hope that it is just enough to  keep things going until after Labor Day weekend (2 1/2 weeks from today) cause that is a 3 day weekend for my son and we are going to rent the backhoe that weekend cause we can get 3 days for the price of one..and we always look for a bargain.

once that pond has been redug deeper, hopefully it will fill in from the water table??? but if not..LET IT RAIN..we generally have really rainy autums here, but last year it wasn't the case..it was dry and hardly any snow all winter long..so we need rain and snow this fall and winter..and i hate to hope for snow..but if we don't get it, we'll start losing trees.



I have been seeing Russian fires on our news here, but also the awful flooding south of you all in Pakistan, India etc..so they are getting YOUR rain..just like the south of our state has gotten the rain we needed and they got flooded, also Iowa got flooded here too as well as some other states..

it needs to be more balanced over the entire area rather than all in one or two spots !!

As you watch the weather forcast rain clouds either come up from the south or west but just before they reach us they doge around us! aggg...

I live in Canada on the west shore of Lake Superior. The weather has been doing the same thing here too while 100 miles away there is record rainfall.

The veggies have suffered from lack of water and the intense heat

Yes. Here too. My peas and and beans are all varieties for short, cool growing seasons. They haven't liked the heat this summer at all. Although I've never had such success growing peppers!

On a different topic, there are many Finnish people that live around here. I've never visited Finland but I always figured the climate and landscape must be very similar for so many Fins to like it here.  Thank you for introducing us to the sauna!

a tiny little bit of rain today..and cooler..i actually put on a sweater this morning. I hate to say that i hope that we don't get a LOT of rain before we finish  digging out the pond in 2 weeks.,but we need it so bad

British Columbia has had worse than usual wildfires in the timberlands and though temperate with nice days ( a few hot ones as is usual in summer) but we also have had very little rain so far since about May.  This year more than ever I am looking at how vulnerable we are if our wells run dry and November through April we are usually deluged with ample rain we should be conserving. I live on a hill top with a gentle grade and I am thinking a few fingerling ponds Sepp Holzer style would be a smarter way to go , that would call for use of a machine so won't happen this year.  Also roof rainwater collection and storage is really needed in spring , we go through unbelievable amounts of water in summer, even trying to be cognizant and careful with our usage here,  I think I need to be looking at saving tens of thousands of gallons rather than the paltry  750 gallons I am now at .  Our grey water has a seperate system that does drain towards our pergolas and veggie garden,  so that is working a bit in my favour, still amazing how dependant we are on the very thing we are trying to drain away from flooding in winter.
Brenda, your garden  pictures still look like a beautiful oasis !

thanks Synergy

i still hope that we can really dig the pond area deeper..i know it would hold water better having it deeper and it wouldn't evaoprate away as quickly as the shallower areas do now (2 to 3' deep evaporates a lot faster than 5 to 7 ' deep areas do)..also we would love to put in a slow flowing well..flowing wells are very common in our area...with our low water table..and a slow flowing well would replace any evaopration problems..and the drainoff would go back into our wetlands areas (which are very dried out right now..used to be a swamp and now it is mostly dry..even the alders are dying).

2 year drought has really been hard on us here.

we did get a little rain overnight...hopefully it didn't get too much water in the pond as in two weeks we plan on the backhoe to dig the pond deeper..after that is done let the fall monsoons start in full strength !!!

ok well we rented a backhoe to redig our shallow areas of our pond deeper, and while we were using it, about half done, a hydrolic hose broke..

yes it spewed hydrolic fluid all over in the water of the pond dig, kinda freaking me out as i'm not sure what that will do to my pond, it is a fairly large pond, and the area that was contaminated now is not the entire pond, until it rains enough for it to all fill back in, then it will be.

ok the backhoe was stuck cause you couldn't use the hydrolics..so we got it pulled out with the tractor and cleaned up and loaded..but while we are cleaning it it is spewing out more hydrolic fluid and when we drive it to the trailer to load it..more hydrolic fluid spewing..

so not sure what i should do about the spills..

one good thing, when he returned it they asked him to take it to the repair place, but they did say they would let him have it again after it is repaired, evidently for free, but he has so little time off we aren't sure when we can do that..but...now we have a partially dug out pond, none of the dirt piles moved, and hydrolic fuild messes in 3 or 4 areas of the property, including some water..

before it rains too much you can dig out the soil with the hydraulic fluid and put it in sandbags
on the pond surface they make special material that floats on water and absorbs oil I would try and get the rental place to buy me a box and if they can't be made to do so get them myself but it needs to be done soon

something like this I think TSC carries them
http://www.absorbentsonline.com/oilonlypadsrolls.htm

Out of curiosity, what were you doing earlier to keep the ponds from becoming mosquito breeding camp?

before we had fish in the pond we put in organic mosquito dunk donuts..and they worked good, but after, the fish kept them at bay.

the fish were protected in the areas of the pond that had not dried out

here is a link to some photos so you can see that we avoided digging where there was standing water in the deeper areas

http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/2010/09/page-one-of-redigging-our-pond.html

i am concerned about the fish, turtles and frogs cause of the hydraulic fluid spill..will be seeing what can be done to clean that up, it was in an area that wasn't very wet.

he had just moved it and was going to start digging again so it wasn't over the water.

thought about using cat litter to absorb and then scoop that off and dispose of it.
did hear from the rental company and they are giving us free use of it at another time when it is repaired.

update, we are having 50 to 60 MPH winds here so a little too windy to get the skimmer out and clean the water..but i did see a small oil sheen on a small area of water that is isolated from the rest of the water by dirt..so that is contained until i can get it skimmed off or pumped out of that hole..was going to attempt to skim it but i would have blown away..so day after tomorrow i believe the wind will be dying down.

we will have the tractor scrape off the contaminated soil..and watch for any further oil sheen on the pond areas before opening it up to the areas that have fish and turtles and frogs in them

if you look at the link on the post above you'll see we were careful to isolate the new digging area from the areas where water was still standing ..where the fish and the other wildlife are..and the hydraulic fluid only leaked into one hole with water in it so we can isolate that unless we get flooding rains (which are not in the forcast)..thank God.

they did say he can use the backhoe again when it is repaired, evidently for free, so maybe next Sunday or Monda??if he can get time off work

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in the middle of our pond redig we blew a hydraulic hose last week..well the rental place called this morning and had a different machine..a mini dozer/backhoe available for this weekend..so we went down and got it.

Joel was able to play for 45 min before he had to go to work, it has a smaller bite but is much faster and has a 360 degree turret on it..so it also makes it much easier to move the dirt..he got a lot moved in just those 45 min in the rain and cold.

forcast for tomorrow is 70 and dry..so we hope the pond doesn't fill up in this rain before tomorrow !! at least he can move some of the piles and banks and work from the banks even if the pond does get too wet to work in there..he had most of the deep digging done before it blew last week..but had huge piles of dirt all over to be moved.

this one has no bucket , but our tractor has a bucket and backblade..so this should meet our needs..

http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/2010/09/september-12-and-13-mini-backhoe-and.html

a link to yesterday's photos ..you can go to other blog postings and see photos from the other days of the dig and before digging..

I forgot to tell you, I did get up on the tractor over the weekend to see if I could drive it, but I had to have help getting onto the tractor and my leg was too short to push in the clutch, so I obviously can't drive it, so that is now out of the question.

I was talking with Ron, out by the swing, about how I was disappointed that I couldn't drive the tractor cause there was so much I would do if I could, and he said, what is the first thing you would do..and I said..well I'd love to move all the dirt that Joel dug out of the pond but first I would want to level (and I pointed to an area just in front of the swing by the pond where a lot of weeds were growing on an unlevel part of the bank) that area out.

A little later he walked around (saying he was looking for goldenrod galls for the cats to play with) and he came back driving the tractor. He had learned a lot on Sunday driving it helping Joel and I think he felt more confident on it, so he started trying to level out the bank, he had a few problems but he kept at it..for a few hours, even after dark where he had to turn the lights on. I had to come inside and he stayed out there for a little while after I came in ..playing on the tractor...so I'm not sure what he did after I came in..but he was enjoying himself levelling the bank area..he tore up some areas that I'll have to use a rake to try to level out..but I told him not to worry about that, as that is what we have rakes for..but anyway, he was enjoying himself..He attempted to dig out some tree stumps, but they just have too good roots for him to dig out, they need a chainsaw..mine is busted right now, a part missing so unless i can get the part i can't use mine, might be a ble to "make do" with something else as a temp part for it someday, i'll try to figure that out..would be nice to have those stumps out of there, get the entire bank raked up nice and smooth and maybe pick up a bag of grass seed and get some grass sowed on that bank..cause that would give it fall and winter to get established..we do have a rainy period coming in, according to the weather forcast..but it is all iffy, isolated...scattered..forcasts like that.

he is sleeping sitting up on the family room sofa right now..not very comfortably I'm sure.

I admit i'm somewhat disappointed that I wasn't able to "drive" the tractor, I was pretty sure I'd be able to learn it but as you know sceptic as to whether it was a good idea to learn it or not as it would give them another excuse to put more jobs off on me, but actually kinda relieved. Once I learned to use the lawmower (zero turn rider) no one ever got on it again, figured that was my job..and before that i did 2 days of mowing wiht the walk behind, cause they figured I would do  it so why would they bother getting their butts on the rider and helping..nope.let her do it she knows how.. I used to do all the snow removal with a snowblower until lit brooke and they were too lazy to put it in the truck and take it to the repair man for a $40 part fix..so they do the snow remofal with the tractor, but if i could drive the tractor that also would be my job..so maybe i am just a little bit relieved..but with my lack of patience i would like to get the jobs done around here that sit undone cause I can t do them, or i end up doing them with a shovel and wheelborrow or a pitchfork and wheelborrow