Pond dreaming is over

[mscheer772]

Muskrats are very bad,shoot or trap on sight would be my recommendation. They like to burrow into banks and dams. Will cause a dam to leak and could cause it to fail.

I'm told you can bury busted up glass throughout the dam site and this causes havoc with the muskrats. I can't personally confirm the glass,but it does come from a reliable source.

 

[coopers]

Just shoot it.

Within the parameters of your laws of course.

Blake
WA

 

[schmism]

<cough> .17 hmr <cough>

 

[philbuilt]

Havn't seen the muskrat in a few days but, my wife saw a mink (she didn't take a picture) I read that minks eat muskrats I hope he got it. Here is a pic of the 2 holes . pic1,2
I will post more later I'm having trouble uploading pictures.
Can anyone tell me how to put the pictures in the post rather than the links
Thanks
Phil

 

[coopers]

I'm guessing that if your image is smaller than a certain size it will automatically come up as a picture in the post, if it is too large it puts it as a link. I like the link because I can see a good size image rather than this smaller size that the forum wants. Again, I *think* this is how it works. Other forums it just comes up as a picture but any larger and it won't turn it into a link but tell you to resize it.

Blake
WA

 

[RegL]

Philbuilt, did you have to go through much red tape before starting your pond? Getting so around here, you can't dig a post hole if a frog lives within a mile of the neighborhood.

 

[philbuilt]

Regl,
No, but i did talk with a lot of folks on what to do. Most of them contractor type. They do alot of digging so I thought they would know. Anyone can dig a hole in dry dirt so I waited for a very dry summer and dug the hole. That was on labor day weekend in 05. I think the following tuesday before 10 am the local code officer called to see what I was doing. I told them I was digging a hole because I like to play on tractors and I have the land. I also asked if it was breaking any laws. She said only if it was a wetland. I also asked if I needed a permit to dig a hole. Again the answer was no.
1st she stated that she had received complants from neigbors that contruction was going on in wetland. I invited her to meet with me and showed her that there was no wet land. the bottom of my field had no standing water or streams and no cattails. The dirt was very dry. My land where the pond is now is the bottom of a natural valley. so I knew it would hold water. My land is clay. I did dowes the land and stake it so that I would know where to dig deeper and maybe hit water. I use bent welding rods so it's not like I can tell how deep but you do get a good sence if there is something below.
Phil

 

[EddieWalker]

Phil,

Your a very smart man. Isn't it sad that you not only knew your neighbors would complain about you working on your land, but they actually did????

I'll never understand how much effort an agency will put into fighting with a landowner on what they do with there land, yet let a big development come in and totally fill in a genuine marsh.

On a friends ranch in California, we had to prove that there were no salamanders on his land befor he could get his permit to build a house. We had to mark off an area that was about 100 feet x 100 feet and record every track that we found in that area for a month. They had people out there almost every day to check our findings and just act important. No salamanders.

He was also pretty smart when it came to putting in his pond. He never said a thing to anybody, just had a dozer show up and start working. The next day there was half a dozen people on his land to stop him from destroying the watershed to a seasonal creak by putting in an illegal pond. He explained to them that he was not putting in a pond, but cleaning up an existing one that had silted over and the tree canopy had blocked from view of there helicopters. They had all sorts of arial pics to show that there wasn't a pond there, but they couldn't prove there was never a dam there or that a silted in pond wasn't under the trees. hahahahaha It was great!!!!!

You remind me of my buddy!!!!!!

Eddie

 

[philbuilt]

Yes neighbors are predictable here. Mostly imports LOL
New visitors today.

 

[philbuilt]

Now for the road to the pond. Late fall of 2005 i used my 48" tiller and tilled the future road to the pond. Summer of 06 I started to dig it out about 10" deep from the surface. There is a gravel pit about a mile away so I traded with the owner on a 1 to1 basis. That was about 150yds. fortunately I have a SS and 5yd dump truck at work that made it easy SS in the pit and my Massey at home. It took about 3 days off and on. my wife and daughters helped load the baseball sized and bigger rocks in the fel to be used for riprap at the pond.

The last pic is a low spot. ( pond road 4)Now can anyone tell me what a french drain is? I've seen that posted on another thread without explanation. I hope it's something I can use to drain this down to the pond.