Hi ho. Hi ho. It’s off to work we go. We work all day … Well that’s not an entirely true statement, but I did watch all day, as a matter of fact, I watched for two full days, from the crack of dawn in the morning until darkness fell at night, and you could not find anyone more pleased with what I saw than I was.
What I saw, folks, were a humongous, big, high hoe and an equally sized bull-dozer lumber up over the hill and down to the swale that bordered the bush-land on the southeast corner of the farm I now call home.
They were brought in as part of the last major cleanup following the devastating tornado that left trees uprooted and debris scattered each and every way the year previous.
The natural pond that once existed there, suffering trailing decades of neglect, needed a major cleanup. Though much of the burnable wood was salvaged by neighbours who had wood stoves, there was no way that small equipment could have begun to do the job.
My life, up to this point, had never chanced experiencing this type of equipment working close at hand, so I was attracted to them the minute the huge floats moved them into the yard. As they downloaded off of the floats and lumbered up over the hill and down to, what could only be described as the mud hole, I was fascinated. I just had to follow. I just had to watch. So I did.
Methodically, the huge backhoe dug out the stumps and remaining downed trees and the bulldozer pushed them, each in turn, far back, ringing the existing, once was, well-fenced, pond site.
Then over the remaining two days the huge shovel dug out the muck and sludge that had obviously gathered there from years encroaching growth and soil washouts from rapid spring melt-water runoff.
Soon, as things quickly progressed, the stumps and stones and existing brush debris disappeared beneath, under what I can only explain, when given time to drain, as the makings of beautiful black topsoil. This circled the entire kidney-shaped pond, which I would guesstimate in size at being much greater than a quarter acre.
As hoped for, and expected, the pond that Mother Nature originally placed was bottom-lined with a thick layer of natural clay.
As the mammoth equipment lumbered back up over the hill to the waiting float, heading back home, a small trickle of water continued to bubble up between several mud-hidden rocks, which, from what I expect, was a once-existing spring.
What more could you want.
Now I can’t wait till next spring to see where the water table finally indicates in order to spread the topsoil and plant trees, shrubs, and grasses as an extensive buffer strip to avoid any further reoccurrence. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll spread a couple of loads of fine grade sand from an existing pit on the farm for a beach. Is there anyone out there wanting to go skinny-dipping with me next summer? The water is coming in clear and cool. It’s quiet, secluded, out of sight from the house, and well away from the roads.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105