More Pond, or How To Reduce Flooding

[OkeeDon]

I appreciate the comments, guys.

I finished bucketing the dirt pile on the "peninsula". I'm not satisfied with the way it looks. The connection between the ponds is too narrrow and the peninsula is too long. I wanted it to be more of an open look. But, it's not my pond. I'll get the real boss, ny daughter, out to look at it.

 

[OkeeDon]

Well, she drew a line in the sand. Literally. We all agreed, as did a couple of my son-in-law's friends who stopped by. Tomorrow (Monday), I'll be telling the contractor that it needs to be dug out a little more. It will put me a bit over budget, but it just doesn't look right.

I'm paying for the work on both ponds because I'm the one who needs most of the dirt. We did spread some dirt on Amy & Doug's land, but that's part of the deal. My son-in-law and I have a pretty neat relationship. He works with me frequently, helping and doing the things I can no longer do. He's a fireman with a fair amount of time off, even more now that he's finished paramedic school. Instead of paying him for his time, I do things for them, like paying for the entire pond improvement even though they get some of the dirt and it improves the value of their property. Doug is hyper and must be working, so I think I get the better end of the deal.

 

[OkeeDon]

There are some side projects involved in this deal. Amy & Doug's house is built on a high stem wall. We're placing some dirt part way up the foundation to make it look less like a "sore thumb". I set the piles with the big loader, but used the TC18 to groom the slope.

 

[OkeeDon]

This shows how high the stem wall was before I sloped the dirt to it.

 

[OkeeDon]

Amy & Doug are having an ell-shaped addition added to the front of the house, adding a new master bedroom, master bath and a new bedroom for Erin, the 3 year old. It will change the house from a 3 bedroom, 2 bath to a 4 bedroom, 3 bath with den. Mom & Dad get a new master bedroom and bath, each of the kids will have their own room, the girls will share a bath, and Aidan, my 8 month old grandson, will share his bath with guests.

Because the addition will extend out to the stake to the left of the house (right beside the dozer track in the picture), I extended the slope out that far, also. Once the addition is constructed, we'll add some dirt to the front and slope it down to the pond.

 

[OkeeDon]

Here's another shot of one of the areas we "fixed" with the fill. The center of this area will be a vegetable garden, possibly in raised beds -- depends on how ambitious I am by that point.

 

[OkeeDon]

Tomorrow, after they reduce the size of the peninsula on Amy & Doug's pond, they start on mone. Here's another "before" shot; I'll try to take an "after" shot from the same general area.

 

[OkeeDon]

Earlier, I said the loader was a 916 model; that was a senior moment. As you can see, it's actually a 621B or 6218, not sure which. Yeah, that's me.

 

[rlee6]

I see plywood boards on the windows. Are they from last year's hurricane season?

 

[OkeeDon]

Yes. While Doug is a hard worker, he's also a procrastinator. Although, if you ask him, he's solely responsible for us not having any hurricanes yet this year -- if he takes down the shutters, we'll have a hurricane. I try not to interfere -- they can live any way they like to.