1/4 Acre Pond Build Timelapse - 2 Months In 11 Minutes

here's the story of how we built a new quarter acre pond we are City kids without a lick of experience but somehow we've carved a life on these Seven Acres learning everything farming for the very first time can I just be put on record saying that there is a lot of hard in homesteading the seasons can be brutal and animals are never textbook and when learning it all at once this Homestead life can feel very reactive sometimes you just need a little beauty and that's what this Homestead project is all about simple beauty I promise not to leave you hanging on the last video so here is a look at our work in progress Pond when I left town for a family trip Beau stayed behind to mine the farm and I told him to take it easy to sleep and to call a pond guy we arrived home a week later and the very next day Anthony was there with his crew to build us a new Pond I say new because we bought this property with a pond on it and by Pond I mean that there was a hole and sometimes it had water and it wasn't really the kind of spot that you wanted to go sit by and enjoy there are so many fixits on this property no one had ever lived on it or built on it or improved upon it before it became ours until now each project has had a single effort and end in mind any Improvement made on the property needs to increase the value of it and it needs to improve the quality of the land itself on rural land a pond will always always bring a return on the investment digging a new one was a no-brainer and after some of the setbacks from the fall we've really needed a win here is what it looked like to move this project forward first we drained the glorified hole in the ground and found some interesting wildlife it fast no you don't need to wait don't worry no turtles were harmed in the making of This film or pond biggest decision to make during this project was a heartache because there were so many trees that we had to clear in order to build a healthy Pond cutting back these trees hurt so I remind myself that sometimes we take a step back to take three steps forward clearing feels a lot like we're losing habitats but the ecosystem this Pond will bring is going to encourage so much more Wildlife to our area and then came the digging and more digging and more digging it looked like a meteorite had come blazing from the sky skidded on the back pasture until it came to a screeching halt there is a whole Math and Science component to engineering a healthy Pond that we were sorely missing with the original one and we wanted to get it right our contractor said the good news is that we have some really dense clay dirt perfect for ponds it's also coincidentally the bad news because digging in clay required some serious effort dragging these claws at every pass of the Dozer just to make a dent who doesn't enjoy a good time lapse just to chill out and Zone enjoy this one [Music] [Music] [Music] from the beginning of this Pond dream Bo and I always had one design in mind we knew that it would require some of the big Oaks to go but one tree just this one tree had to stay keeping this tree did constrain the size of our pond but she is the centerpiece of the entire thing there will be a fire pit for spring picnics a tire swing and a zipline that stretches across the width of the pond she is the Gathering Spot and she is fantastic if this all goes according to plan then we'll end up with a quarter acre Pond that curves gently around a peninsula and gives us a pebble entry shallow end where we can play and fish and nature journal and zipline and paddle board and all the things I am so excited about this there's this mindset shift when you're a first generation Homesteader City life has a lot of built-in obligations and pressures and sometimes you just have to get away to reset and so the vacation was born we love a good vacation still but we're also hoping to build a life that we don't need a vacation from this space on our property has the financial benefit yes but it's primarily a place we can just enjoy across the Seven Acres everything has a function and this function is beauty this is the lowest point on our property and in this case we had a problem that became the solution mountains of material were left over from the pond dig and that became the Earthworks to slow down erosion as the water runoff made its way from the high points of the property down to the pond Beau got on the tractor and moved mounds of dirt around to make this possible day six was glorious the dam wall was finally complete and the last step was to return the topsoil although Disturbed the topsoil was like icing on the cake and ready for new grass seed to help it restore there is a point in every project where you fear things have gone terribly wrong after the crew left we didn't have a pond we had a mud pit so in went the rye grass on the dam wall this will help keep the topsoil where it is and even help us put in perennial grass when the spring hits okay so this is what we're having to do to be able to cut down the erosion see starts up here at the top of the hill and then we have basically some kind of some diversion berms but you can see there's the water that pulls up there and this berm slows it down just a little bit and then the Overflow Spillway will be on that side I it's not pretty but it kind of does the job it holds the water back but that definitely has helped because you saw all that water when we first got the pun Doug I just didn't have enough time and so we lost a lot of erosion down that way and actually all that silt in that topsoil ended up in the pond we endure some pretty hot summers here in Texas so we expect to lose not just inches but feet in this Pond to evaporation so a 12 foot depth should keep the water cool enough for our fish to still Thrive and the quality of the water to remain healthy [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] get up to the top [Music] speaking of fish we found a place online to buy fat head minnows these will be Bait fish for our bluegill and our bass to feed on we shouldn't need to ever buy more this is 2 000 fat head minnows right here and we named every one of them foreign [Music] there are still some serious learning curves here like everything else we do we're talking aerators and water PH and native plants to help keep the algae down and my Terror of all Terrors water moccasins they literally haunt my dreams okay they probably won't be an issue but the point is the same this is a big project right now we have a literal hole in the ground but this slow country living has taught me so much patience we've had a few rains since the initial dig and I'm not as concerned about having to turn this into a dirt bike half pipe anymore in all my seasoned 39 years I've learned that I'm gonna think on whatever I think on so if my thoughts are turned toward all the mistakes and the hardships we endure I know I'll feel like I'm failing and mistakes and hardship are the benchmarks of our entire life but even in the midst of that mess anytime I think on what is good and what is beautiful and right and Noble I begin to see everything through that lens so maybe you're in the midst of that mess I hope this helped you even for a few minutes consider what is good and beautiful right in front of you too [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign

Channel: Better Together Homestead

Views: 104,367

Keywords: better together life, texas homestead build, survival, storage sheds, shed, sheds for sale, living in a shed, Milking Machine, Single Bucket Milking Machine, Cow Milking Machine, Portable Milking Machine, farm vlogs, milk cow, family milk cow, dairy cow, family cow, homestead cow, milking a cow, organic milk, milking cow, info about a family cow, jersey cattle (animal breed), converting a shed to tiny house, mobile chicken tractor, raising chickens, pastured raised pigs

Id: gwpt2O5cnxI

Length: 11min 36sec (696 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 30 2022