Creating a Lake

[RobJ]

Rob,

Thanks for the update and pictures of your friends pond. It really looks nice with all that water in it!!! Kind of changes the entire look of the land. Now I'd love to see some pictures in the spring when the grass is all in. I bet it will be amazing!!!!!!!!!

Eddie

Well Edwin quickly sold the property but I think I still have access to it. Edwin just has to put a word in for me, he still touching up some places with the D6, I think they are going to try and plant a cover crop soon if they can. There is lots of good soil there, the lower area was all bottom land(some huge stumps still there). I would have loved to buy it and put a house right where I took the pictures. What a deal to, bought the 60-acres for about 65k, took 45k worth of timber off it (mostly oak, lumber guy said several trees were worth $1000 or more alone..BTW his first offer for the timber was 15k). Another good reason for the timber price? It was cut a couple a months before Rita.

These pictures were still back in April, it has suffered some but the branch has a spring running through it.

 

[slowzuki]

Its funny to think of years to fill a pond in. Around here if you dug a hole in the ground it would either fill in from ground water or it would fill in from rain within days.

I'm trying to dig a septic test pit but I am terrified it will fill in the day the septic inspector arrives.

 

[schmism]

I'm trying to dig a septic test pit but I am terrified it will fill in the day the septic inspector arrives.

ya but thats one of those things were your not saveing your self anything by "cheeting" on it.

a drain feild that doesnt drain is ... well worthless....

 

[RobJ]

ya but thats one of those things were your not saveing your self anything by "cheeting" on it.

a drain feild that doesnt drain is ... well worthless....

I gotta agree, If I dig a perk test hole and it even thinks about filling with water it's time to look for another spot to put the septic.

 

[rico304]

Rob,

Everyone else,

Steph and I went out to the lake site this morning for a walk and for her to take some pictures of the wild flowers that are in bloom. I decided to take my measuring wheel to see how big the lake actually is. When I first started this, the dam wasn't going to be half as big as it turned out, and I took my measurements based on an idea of where I expected to dam to be. At that time I came up with just over 5 acres.

Today I measured off a bunch of rectangles and triangles. I added up the square footage and came up with 187,310, or 4.3 acres.

I'm a little disapointed because I had it in my head that it was 5 acres. It doesn't matter really, but then again??? hahahaha

4 acres is still pretty good sized, and I did build the dam much, much larger than I ever planned or even imagined in my wildest dreams. I also have 12 feet of depth at the deep end and 8 feet through most of it, so thats a good thing. It's just not 5 acres.

Oh well,
Eddie

I have looked forward to everyones posts since your started your 5 acre project Eddie. However, now that I know that it is only a 4.3 acre project I'm not so sure it will be able to keep my interest. I wish you would have done these goesintas a while ago. It would have saved me a lot of time! hahahaha

 

[EddieWalker]

Just a quick update on my hole in the ground. It's now a muddy hole with a trace of water in it.

Last weekend, we had an inch of rain over a full day. It was slow and steady with very little run off. The next day I went to the lake to see if I got any water in it.

The first picture shows the lake. There is some, but this is the deepest end of the lake and it needs to have 4 feet of water just to get the other end wet.

The second picture shows the outside of the dam. I graded it out so that it's almost impossible to tell where the dam starts and where I cut the ground down a little for the water to run into the creek. You can also see in this picture how the bermuda grass is starting to grow. The grass in this picture was some of the first seed I put out, but as of today, I see small sprouts of grass coming in everywhere.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Last night we had our first real hard rain of the season. In about 30 minutes, my rain guage showed 1.75 inches of rain. The ground is still sort of moist from the last rain, so this stuff was all run off. I was very exited this morning to see how my changes to the ground in my pasture and other areas of the land handled the rain. I eyeball most of these changes, so sometimes I find I need to go back and make a few modifications. hahaha

There is one spot that was pretty bad and I lost about 4 acres worth of runoff, but otherwise, it went pretty good.

I also had a problem with one of my culverts. It's the smaller 15 inch one, and the water wore away the dirt at the entrance to the culvert two feet back. The first picture shows this. To fix it, I'm going to stack 40 pound sacks of readi mix around the pipe with rebar pounded through it. That will be one of next weeks projects.

The second picture shows the big hole in the ground with a few feet of water in the deep end.

It's a start,
Eddie

 

[Nat]

If you are getting as much rain as the weather chanel shows there ought to be a bunch of water in it by now, may not want to invest in a pump for a while. I showed Vickie the oics of the lake filling, she is impressed. Later, Nat

 

[EddieWalker]

Hey Nat,

Tell Vickie we said hi.

The rains are about a hundred miles south of us. Some of the guys over at PondBoss are getting 7, 8, and even 11 inches out of a single rain. Here we're exited about every inch we get!!!!

There are still two counties between here and Dallas that are still under burn bans.

Luckily I got that grass seed in just in time and it's all starting to sprout. The forcast is mid 70's next week with a chance of rain on Tue. Perfect growing conditions for my grass. I'm more worried about that getting started before winter hits than I am about the water level. If it goes dorment too soon, it might not make it through winter. I know, who ever heard that you can kill bermuda grass? hahaha

It's probably safe now, but I'll worry about it until next spring.

Eddie

 

[JayDavis]

Most of the rain has been to the sooth of Eddie and to the east. Parts of LA and extreme east TX have gotten over 20" of rain this month. We didn't get any of that rain last night, Eddie, but we did get that nice slow rain Wednesday. Glad to see that lake filling up.

 

[Renze]

Hey Eddie, some say that you can sleep well with a symphony of raindrops on your bedroom windows.
In your case, i can really imagine howstatisfying this sound must be to you...

I can imagine how good it feels, to see nature finish your project, after more than 1,5 year of hard work !

 

[EddieWalker]

Hey Renze,

Your right about the rain haveing extra meaning to me when it happens. The next morning I work my way through the mud just to see what the water has done when it hits the ground. I follow the path it takes to see where it goes.

This project first started as an idea I had over two years ago. I knew from my top map that I had a low area that I couldn't build on. It was too thick to get to by foot, so one day I just pointed the dozer in that direction to see what it was like. After a short distance, I saw standing water. I turned right and just worked my way along the edge of the wet areas. After awhile, I came to my property line, the creek. Here I turened left, and then I worked my way along the creek by pushing trees and shrubs out of the way working my way around the wet area.

I went to a point I new I had to leave alone for my sewer system and turned back towards where I started. I just kept out of the wet area and made a circle all the way around.

At the time I did this, I had no idea of how big the circle was, or what shape it was. It was just an outline and how I based the location and size of the lake. I was honestly shocked at the shape of it when I had the trees out of the way. I had thought it was a long oval or skinny triangle in shape. I was worried that it was so narrow that people fishing on the sides would hit the oposite shoreline when they cast there poles. I was hopeing for 3 acres, but just couldn't figure out how to measure it. I also didn't think I'd be able to get the trees out because of the mud. I never anticipated two years of extreme drought. I was going to build the dam as tall as I could and cut the trees down with a chainsaw, then pull them out when they floated to the edge. It would have been a mess that I can see now would never have worked, or been something nice. I got very lucky the weather did what it did and how it turned out.

This all happened around the time I met Steph, so there is a parralel to my relationship with her and the building of the lake. I can come up with all sorts of parallels to them, but will leave it as a wonderful sense of accomplishment and happiness. I foresee both to continue to get better and better over the years!!!!!

I've ordered a 3 inch trash pump off ebay and some hoses from Northern Tool that should be here towards the end of the week. I'll update with pics and my observations when that happens. Today I think I'll pull the gas tank out of my parts car, a 1988 Chevy s-10 blazer. I'll use it for a larger fuel source so I can keep the pump running 24/7.

Eddie

 

[stumpfield]

Hey Eddie, this is a very interesting thread. You can write a book or make an adventure movie out of this experience . I'm so inspired by all this and wanting to create my own lake. I spent a few early mornings last week walking the area and day dreaming about a lake there. I'm hoping you and those who read this thread have more experience and give me a few comments. Here's the topo map and a rough outline of the dam.

 

[EddieWalker]

Hey Stump,

I'm no expert at this, as I'm sure is obvious from this post. hahaha But from the look of your topo map, I'd say you have the perfect location for a pond right where you drew your dam.

Everything I know about pond building is summed up real easy. It takes ten times longer to do it than you could possibly imagine!!!

What you realy need to do is start reading posts over at Pond Boss Magazine Home Page!

There is one right now about what people did wrong when they built there ponds. There are other threads about coring your dam, building structure, soild types, fish to stock and it goes on and on.

Do a search for a guy named Brettski. He just built a really nice 5 acre pond and has done a ton of research into what and how to do it right.

The holey grail on pond building is probably Pub 590. This is a government publication on how to build a pond and how to size everything. There are all sorts of tables to do your calulations, plus diagrams and instructions. I don't think I mentioned it earlier, so here's the link to read it. You really should read all of it before doing anything. I've read it about a dozen times. hahaha

http://www.in.nrcs.usda.gov/pdf files/PONDS.PDF

And when you decide to start this project, I'd sure love to see pics and some discussion of the process.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[Renze]

Eddie what's the plan with the fuel tank and the pump ? are you going to pump water from the creek on the edge of your property ?

 

[EddieWalker]

Hey Renze,

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I sort of figured I'd have the pump running by now and be able to show some pics of it in operation. I sort of got sidetracked into a few other things and it's all sitting on the floor in my shop.

Right now, the weather forecast is 90% for rain, so I'm gonna wait for that before putting out the pump.

Since it's supposed to rain, I decided to fix that culvert problem from a few weeks ago.

First I dug it out with my backhoe, then I stacked 40 pound sacks of readi mix around the opening. After they were in place, I cut some 3/8 rebar and hammered it through the sacks. To help it set up before the rains get here, I filled up a bucket from the lake and dumped it over the sacks. I figured that with the hole in the paper from the rebar, it should set up enough to make it through the storm.

On the exit side, I had some erosion from the heavy rains running off the road. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. hahaha I figure a few sacks will help hold the dirt back and let it compact. If you look close in the picture, you can see that there is a chunk of concrete at the bottom of that trench.

I seem to have all sorts of these leftovers from back when my land was part or Camp Fanin's Rifle Range #4. I'm making piles for rip-rap to cut down on erosion as water comes out of the culverts.

Eddie

 

[3RRL]

Eddie,
I like your culvert storm drain wall. Once it sets up it should provide a lot of resistance to erosion. I still have one culvert to repair and place rip rap before it. I may do exactly what you did. Thanks for the idea. I should have done it earlier but oh well. Luckily, I can divert the flow to another one, nearby.
Great pics you posted too.

 

[wushaw]

Eddie, I must have missed something in 48 pages worth of material but I have a question or two on this culvert...why are the banks so steep? and is this one gonna be permanent?

 

[EddieWalker]

Rob,

Thanks.

Wushaw,

The culvert is permanent, but it's located next to a very large dirt pile that I'll be taking down over the next year. It's in the tens of thousands of yards, so it's gonna be awhile . hahaha

The steepness of the sides is a little deceptive. After I backfilled the readi mix sacks, I dug a deep pit in front of the culvert. It's over 4 feet deep and 6 feet wide with the goal of catching silt from the rain runoff. Instead of the water running right through the culvert, it will fill up the pit and then the water will overflow the pit and drain into the lake.

I dug one before these repairs that filled up in the same storm that damaged the culvert. Everything I catch in this pit is that much less that will settle in the bottom of my lake.

Sometime this spring, I'll finish grade that area and plant it in bermuda grass.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[wushaw]

Ok that makes sense.