Alien Invasion - I want my pond back !
- Thread starter Eric Salop
- Start date
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jclaudii
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- River Valley and South Arkansas
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This is almost like a suspense-drama. I bet your wife is loving these replies!
texasjohn
Super Member
We can't help it. TBNers just love offering solutions and being supportive, even if it is up to 10 years too late:cool2: All we have to do is wait for the past to catch up to present. Kinda like getting a graded paper back and finding out how you did!
OP
Eric Salop
Elite Member
Sorry folks, tbn seems not to be accepting any pictures from me at the moment. I will try again tomorrow.
txdon
Super Star Member
It appears I'm confusing rise with distance.
Oh great, just when I learn something new I have to un-learn it.
MossRoad
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Oh great, just when I learn something new I have to un-learn it.
Yeah, but you don't have to eat some tasty crow while you unlearn it.... :laughing:
OP
Eric Salop
Elite Member
The weather had been very kind in the weeks that had gone by since draining. Apart from a couple of puddles of water in the depression that I once called a pond, the mud was still exposed almost exactly as I had left it.
To local knowledge the pond had always been there. I initially thought that cattle had probably enlarged it in more recent times by treading in the bankside, as none of it was fenced off. My wife then found a map dating backed to 1884 and this showed I was wrong, it had hardly changed shape in all that time. In fact the only real change in all that time is the addition of the track off the road that I put in when I first got the land.
1884 map with pond colored in blue. Image from Google prior to digging
A few years back a very large excavator got stuck clearing out a mere less than a mile away. It was there for many weeks, the boom tilting at a sideways angle becoming almost a regular feature of the landscape. A second recovery machine was then brought in to rescue the first one and it also became bogged down. Not sure how good the drivers were but the bill must have been huge. We were going to play it as safe as possible to make sure everything would be cleaned up, ready for collection at the end of the 3 days. Then again anyone who has removed deep mud will tell you, it is not always as easy as you first think.
One side of the pond against the roadside had long overhanging branches and was a no go area. That left two thirds of bankside to work from. On the first day of digging the excavator tracked steadily around the perimeter of the pond, loading the silt into each dumper in turn. With 2 dumpers we were able to cart away with one while loading the second, keeping the excavator running almost flat out. We used most of that day's spoil filling in other holes and part of the hillside that had been eroded by cattle standing under trees, exposing the roots 2 or 3 feet down in places.
To our surprise, as the bucket worked around the pound, the ooze hardly slumped, it looked more like someone had cut away around the circumference of a huge mud pie. The exposed clay base was left a foot or more below the silt in the centre.
I was camping overnight in a tent and woke up the next morning to clear blue skies again. When I was filling the dumpers with diesel ready to start the second day, I remember thinking how clean the dumpers looked, this was going to be easy...
To local knowledge the pond had always been there. I initially thought that cattle had probably enlarged it in more recent times by treading in the bankside, as none of it was fenced off. My wife then found a map dating backed to 1884 and this showed I was wrong, it had hardly changed shape in all that time. In fact the only real change in all that time is the addition of the track off the road that I put in when I first got the land.
1884 map with pond colored in blue. Image from Google prior to digging
A few years back a very large excavator got stuck clearing out a mere less than a mile away. It was there for many weeks, the boom tilting at a sideways angle becoming almost a regular feature of the landscape. A second recovery machine was then brought in to rescue the first one and it also became bogged down. Not sure how good the drivers were but the bill must have been huge. We were going to play it as safe as possible to make sure everything would be cleaned up, ready for collection at the end of the 3 days. Then again anyone who has removed deep mud will tell you, it is not always as easy as you first think.
One side of the pond against the roadside had long overhanging branches and was a no go area. That left two thirds of bankside to work from. On the first day of digging the excavator tracked steadily around the perimeter of the pond, loading the silt into each dumper in turn. With 2 dumpers we were able to cart away with one while loading the second, keeping the excavator running almost flat out. We used most of that day's spoil filling in other holes and part of the hillside that had been eroded by cattle standing under trees, exposing the roots 2 or 3 feet down in places.
To our surprise, as the bucket worked around the pound, the ooze hardly slumped, it looked more like someone had cut away around the circumference of a huge mud pie. The exposed clay base was left a foot or more below the silt in the centre.
I was camping overnight in a tent and woke up the next morning to clear blue skies again. When I was filling the dumpers with diesel ready to start the second day, I remember thinking how clean the dumpers looked, this was going to be easy...
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Xfaxman
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Wrong! :laughing: The silt will be wetter the farther in that you go.
The dumpers will be splashed with mud.
dave1949
Super Star Member
I wonder how deep the clay base is? Does it extend all the way across the pond?
There was a nice shallow (4'-6' IIRC) pond near my childhood home that was created by digging up clay mostly for fired clay drainage tiles I think. It was an awesome outdoor ice skating place. Plenty of room for a couple of ice hockey areas plus all sorts of room left over for general skating. Sometimes it would freeze clear enough to see the fish under the ice, mostly multi-coloured carp. People would bring logs to feed a warming fire on the bank.
There was a nice shallow (4'-6' IIRC) pond near my childhood home that was created by digging up clay mostly for fired clay drainage tiles I think. It was an awesome outdoor ice skating place. Plenty of room for a couple of ice hockey areas plus all sorts of room left over for general skating. Sometimes it would freeze clear enough to see the fish under the ice, mostly multi-coloured carp. People would bring logs to feed a warming fire on the bank.
OP
Eric Salop
Elite Member
Dig Day 2
The mud had slumped a little overnight in places where the mud had been deepest, but the bulk of the exposed clay was almost dry.
I have seen excavators with extra long booms and no doubt these would have helped reach out a little further. Our plan of attack for that second day didn't need a particularly long boom. The excavator would work gradually to the centre and as it progressed cut out a smooth path down to hopefully more firm clay so the dumpers could come down into the hole to meet the excavator. That way the excavator would not be wasting time tracking back and forth, all it needed to do was swing round to empty it's bucket.
A small ramp was cut into the bankside and down into the hole went the first dumper. To everyone's relief the clay base help up well and we soon settled into a steady routine.
The amount of material coming out was impressive and it became an issue of where to put all the stuff without wasting time driving too far. I cut the wire on the fence to the adjacent field and we poured the gloop out of the dumper buckets onto the ground. My intention at the time was to spread it thinly over the grass in the fields at a later date. Like many of my good intentions, that hadn't happened even by the following year, by which time it was easier to plant a few trees on the top and pretend this was all part of the plan to improve local biodiversity.
Eventually the firm clay base decided it had enough of us rolling over the surface and it started to rut. We began to slip and slide as we reversed out with our loads. When we originally planned the dig we had talked of getting some swamp mats for the sticky stuff, however in the haste to rearrange things these had been forgotten. At first it only needed an occasional gentle nudge from the excavator bucket to get the dumper moving up the grade and we carried on working like that for some time.
Four wheel drive dumpers are designed to work in mud, but once the wheels are constantly spinning you know they have about reached their limit. I thought I would be the first to get stuck, but as I made my last return trip before lunch I saw the first dumper had slipped sideways and now needed some more serious assistance to get out.
They had a chain on it almost before I had chance to snap a photo and some steady pulls had it out again.
Time to move away from that spot before we got seriously stuck. Another ramp was cut and for the rest of the day we steadily ate away at the mud pie.
When we started I had no idea how deep the mud would go. By the end of the day we the deepest points were now at least 6' below the old water level.
Dig Day 3
We didn't move as much mud on that third day. All the easy digging had been had and now were down to scoop a bucket of slop and then track right back before swinging round and pouring into the waiting dumper. In the end, we didn't quite make it to the far bank, but we had dug out enough for this to be a proper pond again for some time to come.
With Hindsight
So that's what we actually did. If I'd found tbn back then and asked you all for help, how else could we have done it ?
.
The mud had slumped a little overnight in places where the mud had been deepest, but the bulk of the exposed clay was almost dry.
I have seen excavators with extra long booms and no doubt these would have helped reach out a little further. Our plan of attack for that second day didn't need a particularly long boom. The excavator would work gradually to the centre and as it progressed cut out a smooth path down to hopefully more firm clay so the dumpers could come down into the hole to meet the excavator. That way the excavator would not be wasting time tracking back and forth, all it needed to do was swing round to empty it's bucket.
A small ramp was cut into the bankside and down into the hole went the first dumper. To everyone's relief the clay base help up well and we soon settled into a steady routine.
The amount of material coming out was impressive and it became an issue of where to put all the stuff without wasting time driving too far. I cut the wire on the fence to the adjacent field and we poured the gloop out of the dumper buckets onto the ground. My intention at the time was to spread it thinly over the grass in the fields at a later date. Like many of my good intentions, that hadn't happened even by the following year, by which time it was easier to plant a few trees on the top and pretend this was all part of the plan to improve local biodiversity.
Eventually the firm clay base decided it had enough of us rolling over the surface and it started to rut. We began to slip and slide as we reversed out with our loads. When we originally planned the dig we had talked of getting some swamp mats for the sticky stuff, however in the haste to rearrange things these had been forgotten. At first it only needed an occasional gentle nudge from the excavator bucket to get the dumper moving up the grade and we carried on working like that for some time.
Four wheel drive dumpers are designed to work in mud, but once the wheels are constantly spinning you know they have about reached their limit. I thought I would be the first to get stuck, but as I made my last return trip before lunch I saw the first dumper had slipped sideways and now needed some more serious assistance to get out.
They had a chain on it almost before I had chance to snap a photo and some steady pulls had it out again.
Time to move away from that spot before we got seriously stuck. Another ramp was cut and for the rest of the day we steadily ate away at the mud pie.
When we started I had no idea how deep the mud would go. By the end of the day we the deepest points were now at least 6' below the old water level.
Dig Day 3
We didn't move as much mud on that third day. All the easy digging had been had and now were down to scoop a bucket of slop and then track right back before swinging round and pouring into the waiting dumper. In the end, we didn't quite make it to the far bank, but we had dug out enough for this to be a proper pond again for some time to come.
With Hindsight
So that's what we actually did. If I'd found tbn back then and asked you all for help, how else could we have done it ?
.
