seal a tiny pond - earthworks.sand.pond PEP BB

Rebecca Gray wrote:I have a large pond that won't hold water.  I have very sandy soil.  I had the dam cored when it was built (important and I may have missed any posts dealing with coring a dam).  The 80 year old man with the bull dozer said there was a vein of sand that might keep it from holding water.  He dug 3 other ponds for me which have held perfectly, so it's the sand that's the issue.  He suggested a number of things  to fix it.  Bentonite of course, but the old time way was to pen a herd of goats or sheep in the pond and feed them there for a month or two.  There is an implement that they use to build roads etc. called a sheep's foot.  It has multiple little pegs on the outside of a heavy drum which sometimes can be filled with water.  They roll it back and forth repeatedly over the area to be compacted.  It still won't make a difference on pure sand, it needs some clay to really plug it.  The manure and rotting hay from the actual living sheep as well as their pointy little feet plug the porous sand area.  The old timers also say about adding material "Sand on clay is money thrown away. Clay on sand is money in the hand".   So the compacting method you are using is time honored. I guess now I need to get a herd of goats.  I'm going to try this.  Question:  When you say build this micro pond "at the foot" of the hugelkultur bed, is that uphill or down hill from it?

Rebecca Gray wrote:When you say build this micro pond "at the foot" of the hugelkultur bed, is that uphill or down hill from it?

Mike Jay Haasl wrote:My soil is really sandy.  I'm going to try this BB but what happens if after compaction it still drains a bit too quickly?  

Is the point of the BB to do a test to see IF your soil can hold water?  Or is it to make it hold water no matter what?