Hank Will reports on how to build a farm pond.
Build a Farm Pond Day 1
Since we had the heavy equipment on the farm to renovate our largest pond’s dam, we decided to have the contractor stake out a new pond on some of our highest elevation land. It turned out the area just above the draw that feeds the large pond was shaped perfectly for an arc-shaped dam and the soil was of sufficient quantity and texture to make dozing it into place relatively easy.
After staking the ends of the dam the grading commenced. Since that part of our ground is terraced, the dam was positioned to receive the runoff from three terraces. Thus, the pond will be fed by about 20 acres of watershed, which will be more than enough to keep the water at a depth of about 9 feet. Rather than using an overflow pipe, we decided to control the pond level with grass spillways that open onto a very mildly sloped patch of prairie … just as the terraces did before.
Day one was spent stripping grass and topsoil, cutting a core trench in the clay subsoil and building up the dam … creating a bowl in the earth at the same time. Since I wanted a gravity-flow stock watering pipe, the contractor left the center portion of the dam sufficiently low to facilitate installing the pipe on the second day of pushing dirt.
Build a Farm Pond Day 2
The second and final day of building the new farm pond commenced without a hitch. Jay installed the stock watering pipe and valve through the dam and the grading was completed. This new pond is shaped a little like a kidney bean and should be full after the spring rains hit later this year. Although we don’t need it for stock water just yet, it makes our most isolated piece of pasture more useful because of water availability. As with our other ponds, we will fence the cattle out to protect the pond structure and water quality. And I suspect we will create a small picnic/reflection area inside the fence.
Kate got so excited about this project, and the fact that we hadn’t completely killed the pond-work budget, that she wanted to redo our most leaky pond before the machinery went away. This project has been two days in the works and looks like it has one more day to completion. In the process of digging out the third pond’s bowl, the bulldozer opened up a lovely free-flowing spring that immediately began to pool. I will report on this project sometime in the future.
Hank Will raises hair sheep, heritage cattle and many varieties of open-pollinated corn on his rural Osage County, Kansas farm. His home life is a perfect complement to his professional life.
