Well I just managed to get my carcass out of a warm bed and down to check out the pond0. And while it may seem quite silty in the pictures, I got several thousand gallons of water.
With the biological systems I’ve got, the silt will clear up in a couple of days. The gopher trenches on the other side of the drive have served a secondary purpose as well. They collected at least a couple of thousand gallons as well and it has soaked in. My ground was thirsty. You could see the marks as to how high the water had been in a trench a foot and a half deep and close to a foot wide.
This is the first time ever that the two halves of the pond have been connected by water. I built it in two so that I could transfer water back and forth. There’s also an insurance value. If one side gets damaged I can transfer everybody/thing to the other side. Oh my goodness I’m going to have a billion baby goldfish.
The long straight object jutting out from the top right in the first picture and the far right in the last picture is a movable divider that can be lowered to allow more water flow between the two halves. Couldn’t do that with concrete!
One of the difficulties with using the pond as rain water catchment is the changing water level with respect to planted pond plants so I developed these floating systems.
Bob
One last one!