Keeping character, or restoring a pond

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</font><font color="blue" class="small">( But that wouldn't be any fun, )</font>

Eddie, I would have to disagree. The large trackhoe would be a lot of fun. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif Of course then it wouldn't be restoring a pond, it would be enlarging a pond and there wouldn't be much character left. But thats just if I was driving. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
Only thing better that seat time is seat time in a bigger toy! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Harvey, sure look foward to seeing this project.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

After filling in the hole with a combination of washout and drier soil I dug my first haunch for the first pier. My plan was nine piers with haunches and to jack up the wall and secure it to the new piers. I figured since the limestone is just under the surface less than a block or so from the property it would be just down a little bit.

 

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I can go down about eight feet with the sixteen inch auger with this combination.

 

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All the way down and no rock to be found. So I decided to go back with the twelve inch set up that will allow me to go just below twelve feet.

I decided to go down at an angle. That way if I don't hit rock I'll have more surface area for the pier to work with.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

That night it rained. The nice yellow stuff is one of North Texas' seven clays. I'm not sure that is isn't just as nasty as our blackest clay when it comes to working wet.

So the next day was spent on another project and then on the day after the first thing I had to do was to work the dirt so I could, well, work the dirt. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

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It was still too wet to work well with the skid loader so I decided to start cutting the bank for a wall that's going around the pond.

 

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Think of real construction on a mini-scale. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif The eighteen inch bucket would take about four loads to fill the Toro dumpster. Then while it was being dumped I'd put the stuff in a pile.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

The excavator is a Vermier and surprisingly strong. It also convinced me the next skid steer that I buy will be a tracked one.

It weighs about eight thousand pounds I'd guess and I can move around a lot better in the wet with it over what I can do with Iris and she only weighs about five thousand.

 

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Here we are in July where we can get occasional showers. In one week we had almost six inches at this one location. It made things interesting to say the least.

After the second shower of only about two inches dried up we go to dig the twelve inch piers down twelve feet with the haunch and iron in place.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Then it was a matter of filling the hole and haunch with concrete.