One of the most important things on Earth is topsoil. Topsoil has developed over thousands of years through the slow breaking down of organic matter from the plants and animals that had lived in the past. When I had my pond dug, I didn’t want the topsoil that once sat there be buried and covered over by clay when constructing the dam, so I had Dutch, who was driving the cat, first strip off the top soil and then spread it out onto the areas of the pasture that wouldn’t be destroyed by the pond.
The photo on top shows the dark topsoil spread on the pasture and the bulldozer digging and shaping the pond.
I designed my pond to have about 2/3rds of it between 4-5 foot (1.2m -1.5m) deep, to create a relatively shallow area so that sunlight could penetrate the water and allow aquatic plant growth. The rest of the pond I was hoping to make about 15 ft. (4.5m) deep.
As the bulldozer dug down into the clay of the “deep” section, suddenly it hit a sandy layer and I told him not to go any deeper. I was afraid that this sandy layer might cause the pond to leak. As a result my pond is only about 9-10 ft (2.7m - 3m) deep.
The sandy layer we had hit worried me, however there wasn’t much I could do about it but cross my fingers and hope that my pond would hold water.
It took 3 days of “Cat” work to finish digging the pond. When It was done, as I looked out on the big hole in what used to be my pasture, I couldn’t help but worry about what I had done.
More about the pond tomorrow.
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