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Monday Evening, August 8
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The pond is ready to be drained and to have a new start. The mud is deep, and the algae is green.
My brother Dale and I were discussing when our dad first dug it – to deal with the swampy wetland in that area. We both remember it being built, but not the year. Dale thought he may have been in grade school. (He and Dot arrived about the time we were leaving.)
Our niece Karen who owns the homestead, along with her husband, Larry, and their son Travis and his wife Steph, told me on Sunday that there would probably be a good photo opportunity for me on Monday when our neighbor Art prepared to drain the pond.
First, he set up a barrier in the meadow so the water would not erode the soil. The cattle were puzzled by all the activity in their pasture.
The backhoe dug into the soil like it was butter.
There it goes!
It doesn’t take much for our family to have a party! My sister Nancy (holding her granddaughter) and Marlin watched their grandchildren Isaac and Jayna along with their dad, Jared, who also kept a close eye on them. That’s Travis and Steph (green) on the left. Karen in the red shirt. Our sister-in-law Brenda (blue – closest to camera) brought corn husks for the cattle (after freezing lots of corn) and got in on the fun as well.
The water just soaked into the ground and didn’t go very far into the meadow.
Helping move the water along.
The cattle kept an eye on us.
Art dug down as far as he could with this piece of equipment and thinks he may have to come back with a larger one to get the deep part of the pond drained.
This angle is from the drain area – looking toward the pond.
I wonder what she is thinking?
I noticed this pretty silhouette as we walked toward the car.
It was still draining when we left with a good amount of water still left in the middle. You can see by the bank that it went down several feet during the twenty minutes we were there.
Art will make sure it drains, then will come back in several weeks to dig it out. The pond will be lined with stones – I think Larry said 3 feet of stones along the edge of the water (under the water) and another three feet will line the bank. Then they will add a fountain or bubbler to help keep water fresh.
The pond is spring fed. We saw deer tracks around the edges when we went back the next morning. They probably wonder what happened to their water, but they will be so pleased with the nice clean water when the project if finished.
Thank you for explaining the process.
Living in California, the land of NO you can’t do anything on your property without going through an extensive permit process, I was wondering if your family could see the problem and just fix it or do they have to go through local officials.
Yes, we need permits here too. However, I think this wasn’t so difficult because it is spring-fed and will make the area look better.
We did contact local and state officials to see if permits were needed and we were told no because we were not changing the size of the pond just cleaning it up. They also told us not to be surprised if someone reports us to the authorities thinking we did not go thru the proper authority to do this.
Thanks!
What a project! It should look and smell much better How nice to have a pond like that yn your neighboring property!
I am anxious to see it finished.
That’s a different experience to share with your family❣️
Enjoy reading about your family and experiences. It’s a different way of life back east. I have often wondered after we had visited Lancaster County 20 years ago, what possessed our ancestors to move west. Both my wife’s family and my own started in PA. Over the next 250 years the families paths , hers and mine, crossed several times with the ancestors being in the same communities even, yet we have to go back 7 generations to common Stover ancestors and distance and time separated the two lines until we met at college 40 years ago. As I always told people, Mrs. Flyger didn’t know me from Adam’s off ox, but we came to find out how well our ancestors knew one another, even sharing common stock. A trail that led from PA to VA to NC to OH to IA to Dakota for me and her line PA to VA to IN then IA to MO to SD. I wonder, are we hypocrites today when we sing, “I’ll go where you want me to go?” For many of our ancestors, they left all they knew behind to go to where they believed God was leading.
I really enjoyed reading your comments. Do you mind sharing the name of your Mennonite neighbors who attended White Oak 60 years ago. My email is tfcner@dejazzd.com.