work on pond banks yesterday (9/20/10)

Yesterday Joel worked with the tracgtor on the far (East) bank, removing piles of clay and backblading)..between the lilac North and olive South.

Building a little target practice backstop.

Looking back toward the pond from the east field to where Joel was removing dirt piles and backblading. Still needs a lot of work and lots of piles to move. There is another huge pile behind the liliac (will be visible in other photos farther on). and south of these trees as well ..next photo.

Here are two of the piles south of the Olive and North of the Hemlock tree. Joel began to remove part of these piles to level an area to the right not visible in photo. SE corner of pond banks.

Looking NE over the partially dried out pond area that was not redug, on the far side of the dock is an older pond area that was deeper and still has some water in it..and white water lilies.

I have been hand levelling this bank so I could sow it to grass seed. The dock will be finished when I can get to the store with the truck for lumber, and I still have to put trellis on the arbor. There are plants planted along the place where the water level comes to when the pond is full. From near to far there is a baby white pine, smoke bush, red and gold barberries, spierea, iris, ajuga, ligularia, filipendula, blue spruce, alberta spruce, white edge dogwood, hostas, hardy geraniums, siberian iris, willows, box elder, japanese maples, red maples, rhododendron, weeping willow, fir, chamaecyparis, junipers, arborvitaes, euonomys, snowball, weigela, purple leaf beech and cherry , etc.

Just North of this bank is a woods that I have been putting cuttings and seed pods and wildflower seed at the edges of the paths and clearings. Some of the seeds I have put in the woods edges are: Baptisia, Hollyhock, Miniature Hollyhocks, Ratibidiam, Helianthus, Black eyed susan, Anthemis, Lady's Mantle, Gaillardia, Purple coneflower, Blue Globe Thistle, Hardy Geraniums, Queen annes lace, pink and white Lychnis, Poppies, Sweet William, Sweet Pea, Foxglove, columbine, bluebells, spiderwort, rose hips, siberian iris, daylilly seeds, Veronica, Salvia, Liatris,m and Dames Rocket.

I have finally got this entire bank sown to grass seed.

As I said earlier, there is the clay pile that is North of the lilac bush yet to be moved, as you can see it is mammoth !!

In the photo above I am standing on the North bank loking toward the SE bank, a lot of the banks were moved as you could see in the first few photos, but that huge clay bank still has to be moved, as well as all the piles on the south and on the west. That channel there is on the east side of the island. The pond water level is down several feet, so not only will it be deeper but a lot wider when it is filled back up to normal water levels..if you can see cattails in some of the photos, imagine that they would normally be standing in 6 inches to a foot of water..so that is how deep the water level will be when the pond is full again.

This has been quite an adventure, digging the pond deeper, but hopefully someday we'll have our flowing well keeping it full and going over the overflow, and maybe someday we'll plant it to fish for food..yummo.