Things like this are what I value the most. I like our sunrises more than the sunsets. That particular cloud that went on forever rained on me on and off for 2 hours this morning! Mrs T5R a bit North East at the cabin said not a drop of rain fell over there all morning What a difference 500 feet makes LOL.
Better be careful, someone at Google is staying up nights trying to come up with an app that charges you to stream sun rises and sunsets. Love the trees and pond. Thank you for sharing a beautiful morning.
Have set up a work camp on the NW Corner of the Dam with one of the food trailers and a generator. I get down there about 20 minutes before sun up and get the coffee pot making the coffee, wipe the dew off my chair and the dust off my little table, fire up my little table top blackstone and get my sausage, eggs and toast on the griddle. About the time Dawn is cracking, I sit down with my breakfast and coffee and watch the miracle of celestial mechanics unfold I really did not plan one spending what will be 4 Months solid doing dirt work this year. Sitting at my little table watching the sun rise every morning and set every night has created to many conversations with myself that start off with what If Did......... The last what if I did....... Was "Hmmm what if I built a 3rd dam and made a second pond above the Lake and below the big Pond, because the last 1.25 acre of the North Arm Tail water was only going to be 1- 1.5 feet deep with the 40x40 six foot deep hole in the middle of it. So I acted on the what *What If I* and started pushing and pulling heavy clay across the water on box blade at a time.......... Now I am down to about 3 more days of work and 6 tandems of rip rap on the 30' of the center of the dam I can't do good compressed slope on lake side and the 60 feet little pond side. Not a big dam, it is only 8' tall center where the overflow pipe is and will end up around 350 feet long once I finish dragging top soil across the top. Can't do slopes on the center of either side So I build a shelf on either side Water on the lake side will be about middle between pip and shelf. The water I bridged here was 30' wide and around 2 feet deep under where the pipe is. Just kept pushing heavy gold clay in and across the base of the dam lake side (Did the same to make the 3 strips for the dam foundation) no Key under the dam just virgin clay and the clay I pushed across it. and then a 1 strip in the center heavy clay core up and over the pipe. Still need to put a foot of the heavy gold clay on top of the inferior brown and gray clay filler I used to build it up and across.and get that compacted tight on the top of shelf. Then going to put a 6" layer of 3" rock the 30 feet I can't do a compressed slop on. Then dump the tandems of rip rap on the dam once it is levels out and use the little BX Kubota to roll it down the sides of the center Until I have 2 layers if rip rap coating the 1.5:1 sides on the rest of the dam I doing 5:1 slopes. around and below the overflow pipe Going to do a layer of the boulder size 6" rip rap and a layer of 4" rip rap on the side and two layers below the pipe. I only used a 12" pipe which should handle all the heaviest rains like the that 5" over 4 hours we got that put all the water that is in the lake there back in July For that I am going to leave the dam 10" lower on the end the last 10 feet and rip rap the slopes and compress a 6" layer of 3" rock into the clay on the top. An emergency over flow spillway that can handle even the heaviest rains over flow and not be a mine field to drive across. Doing the same thing on the little pond side of the dam as the lake side. I got the shelf half built before quitting time yesterday. Only going to put a 4" layer of 3" rock on the shelf and a single layer of rip rap on the side. Its only 1.25 acres of 4-5 feet deep water that will be applying pressure to the dam and won't be any wave action beating on the dam. The big pond spillway comes in at a angle on the side of the little pond so overflow will swirl in the little pond, the shelf and the base rip rap should negate the swirl action. Also building a series of 4 speed bumps from clay and rip rap where the big pond spillway discharge come in to slow it down under the water and minimize the swirl current it will make and break the flow up and spread it by hopefully 60ish % The big pond..... sigh was only going to be 3 acres with a decent dam.......... It turned into 4 acres out of the woods ravines and 3 acres in the woods ravines with a dam as tall and as wide as the lake dam and will be 540 feet long across the top once the beans are harvested and I build the last 70' where the beans are. That mysterious wet spot baffles me no free water in it at all just wet gray clay that goes down the 8 feet deep I could dig into it with the back hoe. My best theory is there is a real good flowing spring down there deeper than I can dig. Just 20' diameter circle of wet clay with the usual hard dampish clay around it. When I dug the dam key out I went 8 feet down for the key trench and nothing like the wet clay in the mystery spot was found. Didn't find the mystery spot until I was 7' down making the bowl below the dam. This is going to be a really nice pond when it fills 7 acres total 16' deep in the bowl now out of the woods water will run 2-8 feet deep, woods ravines will run 2-4 feet deep. Since this pic was taken I have built 8 smallish islands that I am going to plant Sycamore and weeping willow trees on and a big point (Where I took the picture from) that is a big T surrounded by water except the back where the main woods trail comes out onto the T 5 of the islands are 25' off the top of the T and the trees I plant on them will shade the T in the afternoons. After it is all settle over the winter and spring I am going to make the T one big concrete patio with a 36" cinder block wall around the T and build a gazebo on each end of the T. The important thing in all of this is.......... There is not enough time left before mud season begins to act on any more of the Great Ideas I have while sitting there eating my breakfast and drinking my coffee I have 3-4 days of work to do on the little pond dam to finish it up. Then a week or two break before beans are harvested and then 7-10 days of work finishing up the big pond dam. I started my work on the pond project on July 5th and if all goes as planned will have it all wrapped up by October 30/31 and will have 4 months solid of scraping and dragging top soil out of lake and pond beds, building dams, raising acres of steep slopes up to level arable land, building roads and spending 12-16 hours glued to tractor seats almost every day of that 4 Months. Even if I had another Great Idea I am getting so burned out on this project......... I would slap the piss out of myself until the idea went away I AM READY TO BE DONE WITH POND AND LAKE BUILDING and the completion is finally in sight Until Next year when I build the big South arm dam and turn the 1/4 acre existing stock pond into a 4 acre stock pond Those will be easy dams and ponds though and will only take the Month of July to start and finish. All of the clay and dirt I need to build the South Arm pond is sitting in Mount Krap Minor right beside where the South Arm Pond dam is going to be built. This all started because I was going have a little 4 acre farm pond built, that turned in to A Large Lake. a small pond, a big pond and will finish next year with another big pond and a decent size stock pond and 28 of the 40 acre square of the original farm under water........... Mainly because I hate mowing grass and pastures. Just somehow evolved and turned into more than building a 4 acre pond on a spot that I really REALLY hated to mow.
Yep, old story, when you are a** in the swamp fighting alligators, remember that the original plan was to drain the swamp. Kind of happens in politics too. Already a beautiful project, waiting to see the rest. Thank you, it has been interesting and informative to follow it along.
