Creating a Lake

[groundcover]

Beautiful place you have there Redleicester !

 

[tony Cecil]

A beautiful place you have, and you also have the opportunity to learn how to fish....

Do yourself a favor and read Eddies entire thread...It is a good story, written by a good fellow.....You will then have made a new friend Tony

 

[beppington]

It's not small it has to be said.

We're in the west where prices are rather more sensible, a similar property down in the southeast would be several million I suspect :confused2:

Let's see if these pics work:

Um, yeah, I'd say the pics work ... looking for the "jealous" smilie

 

[redleicester]

Do yourself a favor and read Eddies entire thread...It is a good story, written by a good fellow.....You will then have made a new friend Tony

Yep, took me most of yesterday afternoon but I trawled through the lot eventually! Quite astonishing dedication and level of workmanship. I can't even change oil or wire a plug let alone rebuild bits of an engine AND somehow manage to construct something that magnificent! :thumbsup:

That's just amazing!!!!!! The idea of building the dam by hand, and then adding to it hundreds of years ago has got to be the best pond story EVERY!!!!!!

Your pics are incredible. Thank you for sharing your story and your pics. Any chance that you have roe deer running around that I could come and hunt? I just want to shoot one decent buck.

Thanks Ed. So sorry, didn't mean to derail your thread at all, but will quickly try and answer the questions then get out of the way!

It does boggle the mind somewhat that it was all done by hand, but then I suppose labour was cheap in those days - just a bit of food occasionally and cracking the whip. In its final form, there's a handmade brick wave wall, the remains of the old sluice gate and scouring pool (the sluice chamber was annoyingly backfilled with concrete by the previous owner), an enormous cast iron overflow pipe and brick spillway, and at its deepest point below is about 30ft or so high, even though the deepest part of the lake is only 18ft these days.

A lot of the wave wall is collapsing or has already collapsed (well it is over 100 years old) so we're bit by bit either propping it up or replacing it with cast concrete, steel shuttering and steel piles driven into the bedrock. Far less attractive, but with the right paint will blend into the background and will last a good deal longer with minimal if any maintenance.

The whole thing is fed by natural springs underneath and by run off from the surrounding farmers fields. I wish I'd been around a year or so ago when you were worrying about water levels going randomly up and down - I could have set your mind at rest and told you to get used to it! The pace at which the water level changes is quite frightening: ours has dropped about 6" in the last month, which given the surface area is a LOT of water. Still, given we've had next to no rain to feed it, and a general paucity of rain for the last 18 months (thus the water table has dropped) it's not surprising. Add the effect of wind and dry air working across that surface area and suddenly you realise how quickly it can simply evaporate away.

In 2007 we had some massive floods here, what the Met Office called the "once in 100 year event" and the lake overtopped the dam by 6" within hours, but the dam held which is a relief. Given the combined capacity of the overflow pipe and the spillway it's scary it could have filled and overtopped quite so quickly, but such is life. The remainder does seep a bit, but no one in authority seems too worried about it given its age, position and what it has withstood thus far.

As for deer, we have Muntjac but no Roe around here, at least not on our land, and not in places you're allowed to shoot them! Apart from that on the ground we have countless foxes, two badger's setts, and endless supply of rabbits, and waaayyy too many moles. In the air, we have three nesting pairs of Heron, Sparrowhawk, Kestrels, Buzzards, loads of common duck, occasional gulls and transitory cormorants, a few special ducks and HUGE numbers of Canadian geese. Only two pairs at the moment, but come september when they all start migrating, we'll have upwards of 500+ a night sleeping on the lake. Well, I say sleeping, squawking like demons would be more accurate. All. Night. Long. AARRRGGGHH!!!

I do envy you chaps in the US, over here machinery is both thin on the ground and monumentally expensive. Also we have massive restrictions on what we can or can't shoot (not that I have a gun yet... another thing on the list of "Stuff to learn about"), and it differs between the general public, farmers, estate owners and so on in terms of what is allowed and what isn't. I'm also learning on the hoof as it were, and building up to things slowly - brushcutter, then chainsaw, then ride-on lawnmower, now compact tractor. I'm trying to persuade the wife that we need a backhoe - a "proper" one like yours (this being England, it would probably end up being a JCB) rather than one on the back of my compact Massey... I know it would be so very useful, but it's all money, money, money!

Still, the lake is a massive amount of work - in the closing years of the original owner (of the house that is, not the lake) he didn't do much, and the owner between him and us did NOTHING, so in the space of 18 months since we moved in I've learned how to use a chainsaw, had 56 "trees" down and countless saplings (anything under 6" in my book). Put it this way, given the size of the lake, it's scary to think when we moved in you couldn't see it from the house, despite the fact it's just the other side of the lawn. Overgrown didn't begin to describe it. Plenty more to learn, and having been persuaded by a wise salesman that I needed a compact tractor not a lawnmower was a godsend. I've worked the poor little thing to death, but it's been worth it's weight in gold time and again. Now I just need a bigger one... :laughing:

Right, I'll be quiet now, back on topic to Lake Marabou!

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you for such a great story about your lake and life over there. I have family over there, and keep in touch with them on facebook. I'm always amazed at the words they use, just like you. Differet terms for all sorts of things. It makes it interesting and fun!!!!!!

You really should start a thread and post pics of what you are doing, plan on doing and would some day dream of doing. The best thing about TBN is that you will get input on something that you didn't think you needed input on, and realize that you had it totaly backwards without even knowing it. They will answer questions and ask even more. In a very short time, you will realize how valuable a website this really is!!!!!

Good luck with your place,
Eddie

 

[tony Cecil]

What is a `wave wall`? where is it, and how long is it? I bet you get the most fun out of `messing around the water` and it is incredible it is hand made a hundred or more years ago......Nice....Tony

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Kyle, do you think Eddie's Century compact can handle a 9' sicklebar? Why is a 9' necessary over a 6' or 7' bar. I'm really interested because I'd love to have one to cut around my ponds.

Jim and Eddie, its not a horsepower or weight thing. My little 4310 would run my 9 footer around the pond if the frame of the sicklebar wasn't so wide. Now maybe if you were cutting a thick stand of alfalfa or such, you would need more HP. The reason for the 9 footer is that the weeds in the pond will usually grow 4-5 feet or more out into the pond and you need to reach out to get them. Also, it gives you a 2' cushion to keep out of the same stuff that got Eddie stuck.

Here is an important tip only to be found on Tractorbynet: Everytime you mow close to the water's edge, your tires' can start creating a rut that does not go away. It only gets worse each time you mow and follow the "rut". Wave action will keep the ruts muddy and help grow weeds. When the pond level goes up and down, it gets harder and harder to keep from getting stuck if you get too close. A long sicklebar helps you avoid this situation and saves time, and a wad of chiropractor spent cash.:thumbsup: If the slope around your pond is not too bad, you might be able to get by with a 7 footer but you take the chance of creating the nasty "rut" if you get too close.

My pond has 2 tributaries which adds up to 3200 feet of shoreline. If you can believe it, I used to use my 5' shredder and would back it down to the waterline taking a small "bite" each time. You want to talk about a sore neck from craning my head always looking back. Ouch! It was also tough on the tractor and there is no way you could do it reasonably fast without a hydrostatic tranny.

 

[bindian]

Redleicester,
You have a beautiful piece of heaven there. How about some photos of the dam and spillway and all the other neat stuff you lake has?
hugs, Brandi

 

[redleicester]

What is a `wave wall`? where is it, and how long is it? I bet you get the most fun out of `messing around the water` and it is incredible it is hand made a hundred or more years ago......Nice....Tony

The wave wall runs the full length of the dam from start to finish. The bigger the body of water, and its orientation, affect the likelihood of their being a build up of waves in bad weather. Silly though it may sound, waves are principally formed by wind, not by tides. Obviously a lake doesn't have tides, but it can have strong winds blowing down it.

If you think about it, when the wind blows even on a small pond you get ripples. On a big lake these can form into waves, and if they then flow against the dam, the constant slapping of wave on earth can erode the dam much, much faster than normal. Thus wave walls are constructed out of something impermeable and solid - in the case of ours the Victorians used a 1-1.5m high wall of brick and sandstone which runs from end to end along the dam on the "upstream" face (IE the face of the dam which is in the water).

On some dams you have a complete brick or concrete cap which not only encompasses the upstream face but also runs over the top and some of the downstream face, essentially so that if the dam does overtop in bad weather, the majority of the runoff at its worst will pass over something solid rather than eroding the earth - after all, even with clays like ours and Eddie's dam, it's still just earth at the end of the day and enough water flowing over it will still wash it away.

On our dam, because the wave wall is so elderly and hasn't been looked after at all well for the last 15-20 years, whole sections had collapsed, so we replaced them with the rather more solid and substantial steel piles, shuttering and concrete. Far less attractive, but it doesn't have to be repointed and/or rebuilt year on year!

It's a curiosity of UK legislation but any "new" dam built after a certain date and over a certain size water body HAS to have a wave wall, whereas older ones don't..... unless they already have one (like ours) in which case they have to be maintained.


Thinking of Eddie and all his worries about silt, at the opposite end of the lake, we have a silt-trap - basically a very shallow section of "lake" (9/10ths of the year it's above water) which is where much of the surrounding land drains in to. This is then split off from the rest of the lake with a stone barrier - just loose stone piled high enough to create a little walk way. That was any water rushing in is forced to slow down and "filter" through the stone, with the end result being it drops much of its silt behind the barrier before flowing into the lake. Every little helps...

Here's the wave wall:

Looking the other way:

Enormous cast iron overflow pipe, with spillway next to it:

Those were taken not long after we moved in. The trees "in" the lake and dam wall have now been felled - they should never have been allowed to grow there in the first place.

 

[redleicester]

Redleicester,
You have a beautiful piece of heaven there. How about some photos of the dam and spillway and all the other neat stuff you lake has?
hugs, Brandi

Thanks Brandi - England's green and pleasant land! :thumbsup:

Some more photos above.

 

[dcyrilc]

Redleicester,

Absolutely beautiful! Thanks for sharing the pix.:thumbsup:

 

[EddieWalker]

Great Pictures and a Beautiful Lake Redleicester!! Thank you for sharing them. I thought about adding rock to my shoreline to stop the erossion caused by the waves, but have found that the reeds and grass do that. My waves don't get that big either, so I'm lucky in not having to fight that battle.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

A frind of mine came over yesterday to fish Lake Marabou and work on her tan. She has never caught a fish before, so I took the chance of telling her that I could guarantee her that she would catch something. I know that if it gets real bad, I can put some liver on a small hook and catch bluegill most of the time.

We used chicken livers, and just waited for the catfish to bite. Her fist one was just a pound, but her second one was 2 1/2 pounds!!! She was very excited about both of them!!!!!

Then later on, we saw a water moccasin snake. I really need to carry a gun with me more often, but didn't when we saw it, and after posing for a few pictures, it went into some branches along the shore and disapeared.

I sure do like having a nice fishing pond!!!!!

Eddie

 

[redleicester]

Then later on, we saw a water moccasin snake. I really need to carry a gun with me more often, but didn't when we saw it, and after posing for a few pictures, it went into some branches along the shore and disapeared.

....and the best thing about England......???


Next to no snakes, and those we do have only one is actually poisinous!


Funnily enough I was felling some saplings in the reed beds yesterday and realised that as I was stamping all over reeds and clambering over old log piles I was in prime Adder territory... made me work just that little bit faster! :laughing: I've only seen one in all the time we've been here, and it scarpered sharpish when it saw me, but was still a timely reminder when I spend so much time in and around the lake.

 

[redleicester]

Thinking of fishing, given I don't know one end of a fish from another, is there an easy way of judging / gauging the "size" of a fish - whenever I read of them, they always seem to be ranked by weight. I know some of the fish in our lake are "large" (or at least they seem large to me), but I have no idea what it translates to in poundage.

About the limit of my knowledge is if the normal fish are that big, and they all run off when something shoots out of the reeds, then assuming that's one of the pike, it must be sodding enormous!

 

[bindian]

Thanks Brandi - England's green and pleasant land! :thumbsup:

Some more photos above.

Redleicester,
Thanks for the photos. What a fascinating lake.
hugs, Brandi

 

[B7510HSD]

A frind of mine came over yesterday to fish Lake Marabou and work on her tan. She has never caught a fish before, so I took the chance of telling her that I could guarantee her that she would catch something. I know that if it gets real bad, I can put some liver on a small hook and catch bluegill most of the time.

We used chicken livers, and just waited for the catfish to bite. Her fist one was just a pound, but her second one was 2 1/2 pounds!!! She was very excited about both of them!!!!!

Then later on, we saw a water moccasin snake. I really need to carry a gun with me more often, but didn't when we saw it, and after posing for a few pictures, it went into some branches along the shore and disapeared.

I sure do like having a nice fishing pond!!!!!

Eddie

Eddie Where's the pictures of the fish??? Oh I looked again now I see them!! :laughing::thumbsup:

 

[groundcover]

Nice fish Eddie !! Glad you had the camera and not the gun but that's just me !:laughing:

 

[tony Cecil]

I`m happy for you Eddie...Tony