The gully to pond project

   / The gully to pond project #31  
"More pictures will follow to document my progress."

Good to read your down time at end,and blue ox going to work you. ;)
 
   / The gully to pond project #32  
Thanks for posting this project. You have a nice looking place there, and it will look, and be even nicer as you complete each stage of your project. I know what you mean about your relationship with your dealer. I bought a ZTR mower from the closest dealer, because my brother wanted to use them, and thought giving them a lot of business would motivate them to do right by us. Big mistake. I am now using the next closest, and much happier with their service. Having people you can really count on is worth a lot! Keep the pics coming. Brian
 
   / The gully to pond project
  • Thread Starter
#33  
I got back to digging on my pond basin yesterday. I'm into a layer of caliche that is tough going. It took me all afternoon to dig out about 50 yards of material. Where normally I can loosen dirt very rapidly with the hoe and then scoop it up with the loader for removal, yesterday it was a fight scraping through this tough caliche semi-hard layer. I found that rather than digging in a conventional way, if I could undercut a layer and lift upwards, I can peel off big chunks of caliche and then it just crumbles. Fun stuff!:rolleyes: Here are some pictures.
 

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   / The gully to pond project #34  
I read about these great waterworks projects and wonder if you all live where the bureaucrats have been run out of town. Here, various government regulations make it nearly impossible (certainly unaffordable) to work in or with an existing watercourse.
Sure, I could dig a pond in the middle of a field, but I'd run into hassles if I tried to tap into a stream to fill it...OR let any overflow go back into a stream.

I wanted to dredge out a silted-in pond near our house and (among other things) the Govt. enviro folks wanted me to build a by-pass channel for the stream first...basically, pipe the water past the pond until I was done dredging...several hundred feet of 3' or 4' conduit is way too costly an undertaking for me.

Congratulations to those of you who face less onerous regulations (or less vigilant regulators?).

BOB
 
   / The gully to pond project #35  
I got back to digging on my pond basin yesterday. I'm into a layer of caliche that is tough going. It took me all afternoon to dig out about 50 yards of material. Where normally I can loosen dirt very rapidly with the hoe and then scoop it up with the loader for removal, yesterday it was a fight scraping through this tough caliche semi-hard layer. I found that rather than digging in a conventional way, if I could undercut a layer and lift upwards, I can peel off big chunks of caliche and then it just crumbles. Fun stuff!:rolleyes: Here are some pictures.

Aren't these pics taken from Apollo project? :confused2:
 
   / The gully to pond project #36  
What are you going to do with the cliche? Do you even need it for roads? I sure wish I had that here!!!!!!!!!

Eddie
 
   / The gully to pond project #37  
Jim, here's another pano without white sky.
Keep on diggin!



SmallPond merge.jpg
 
   / The gully to pond project
  • Thread Starter
#38  
Aren't these pics taken from Apollo project? :confused2:

:laughing::laughing::laughing: The way I was bouncing around, I felt like I was on a Moon Rover for sure. You are sure right that it looks like the lunar surface.
 
   / The gully to pond project
  • Thread Starter
#39  
What are you going to do with the cliche? Do you even need it for roads? I sure wish I had that here!!!!!!!!!

Eddie

Eddie: This caliche is not hard enough to crush for gravel. It pulverizes into dust under pressure. I can run over a big "rock" with a tractor wheel and it just crumbles. When it is in a solid layer, it requires the rock teeth on the bucket to scrape off chunks, but once the chunks are unsupported, they pulverize under minimum pressure. It would make good filler for road base, but you'd want a good layer of crushed rock on top to mix with the caliche.

BTW: On a side note, does your 555 front axle pivot like to take grease? I have removed the zerks on my 4wd front axle carrier and pivot to clean out the hard grease and still can't get them to take grease. I guess I'll have to hit it with heat or buy one of those "rejuvenator" attachments. These are the only two zerks on my tractor that won't take grease. All the drive shaft u-joints are well greased and the loader and backhoe have fresh grease oozing out of every joint, but the darn front axle pivot is giving me heck.

Norris: You are working much too hard on this, but doing a beautiful job. Thanks! I have moved probably another 100 yards of material and will take some updated photos this weekend. I think the bottom of my ponds is going to be solid caliche rock. I sure hope it will hold water, but if it seeps out, that will be fine. These ponds are designed to catch and hold water so that my other ponds don't flood and overflow with big rains. If they slowly leak out and keep the other ponds full, I can live with that, but I suspect the hard caliche will end up giving me a very clear blue pond. We'll see.
 
   / The gully to pond project #40  
My front axle at the pivot takes grease real easy. Both the front and back fittings. The place that I struggle with grease is where the wheels turn on the axle. There are two fittings, one is easy, the other is always a battle. Of course, I'm 2wd, so it's probably totally different then what you have.

Eddie
 
 
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