Creating a Lake

[EddieWalker]

When I bought my land, I knew it was missing one important feature. No lake. Fishing is always a nice attraction, not to mention just taking a walk along the shoreline.

Looking on my topo map, I figured I had a good place to build a lake. The dam will be pretty long and I need to clear quite a bit of brush and trees, but that's all part of the fun.

I pointed the dozer in the right direction and just ran over everything in my way until I ran into this. I had no idea it was there and came real close to another stuck dozer situation!!!

[EddieWalker]

That wet spot is well over a hundred feet from my the creek, which is my southern boundry. I cut a road through the brush along the creek, and it was totally dry.

The water is sitting in a depression about two feet lower then the creek embankment.

The creek is to the left in this photo.

[EddieWalker]

My property line is the middle of this creek. It flows year round, but since I only own half of it, I can't dam it.

[EddieWalker]

This is where the dam will go. The trees on the left will remain to provide a nice hiking trail along the creek. Everything else will come out.

[EddieWalker]

I got as close to the swamp as I could with the dozer. Sometimes I went farther then I should, but luckily, I didn't get stuck. Watching the tracks start to sink isn't allot of fun.

I used the backhoe to get as far into it as I could. It was just so sloppy that I couldn't get a hold of anything to pull myself back any further.

Then I started digging a trench.

[EddieWalker]

Once dug, the water started to flow.

[EddieWalker]

One thing I'm beginning to realize is that I'm much dumber in the evenings when it's getting late, then any other time of the day.

It was getting late after digging that trench, and I was driving back in the dark. I decided to take a shortcut on a new dozer road. I knew it wasn't ready for wheel traffic, but figured I could make it anyway. Wrong.

I slid off the dry part into the swamp and got caught in the trees. The tires were buried in mud and the sun had already set.

I spent a few minutes making matters worse before giving up and walking home.

The next morning, my girlfried came out and gave me moral suppport in getting out.

[EddieWalker]

This is my girlfriend. She'd much rather be welding and grinding. The swamp drained down to the trench, but needed some more encouragement.

[EddieWalker]

Here I am after cleaning up the drainage. It's flowing pretty good now!!!

[EddieWalker]

Knowing where the dam is going was the easy part. Figureing out where it begins and ends is turning out to be harder then I expected.

I started clearing an area I wanted it to go, but need it to tie into the existing slope in a spot that will also tie into my plat and road system.

The swamp is six inches deep on this side. I measured from the surface of it and went up six feet with my lazer level.

Then I marked the shoreline in orange paint.

With this little bit of information, I can cut my roads and follow the shorline to the end of the dam.