Zuzu - LOL! OMG, I actually LOL at that one.
My pond feature is pretty simple, actually. Last year, I had a company calculate as to how much dirt I would have to have brought in to cover a small part of my yard (23'x13') 2ft deep. The guy stated I needed 13 tons. He then told me to figure that a ton is about the size of a bathtub, so, when I thought about it, sure, OK, that sounds about right. I paid them to bring in some great topsoil (this stuff is nice topsoil) and away we went.
They brought in a large dumptruck and piled a pile of dirt that was longer than my husband's xB and taller than the car as well. This was a MOUNTAIN.
Now, I've moved dirt & rock before.. worst thing I've done was help my F-I-L move 11 tons of river rock in about 3 hours. However, I knew that 1) this was way more than 13 tons and 2) this was a job WAY too big for me to handle. So, I ended up hiring a guy w/a Bobcat to come & move the dirt. He did so, in about 3 hours (8am to about 11am). He piled & piled and piled and piled and piled right where I wanted the dirt to go. Then he STILL had more dirt, so he piled a small second pile next to the area rather than putting more dirt on the already huge mound. Uh, that doesn't work well for me, but he couldn't really dig it back up because then he would have run over a small tree I had planted (didn't really expect to have to hire a bobcat). So, now I have about 4 extra tons of dirt that need to be moved, still. I couldn't do a heck of a lot last year as, when it wasn't raining, I was trying to get the front yard done, and then it was raining, so I couldn't really work in mud. Well, I *could* have, but didn't want to.
Now that the weather's finally settled into a more of a dry-type of weather, now I'm able to work. Yesterday, I did put both ponds in. But the problem is that this isn't hard-packed soil, this is very .. fluffy? soil that sinks whenever my fat butt walks on it. So I'm having to move regularly so I don't create massive divots with my big-ol' feet. One pond is only 5'x3'x2' at it's deepest, that's the waterfall type. The other one is about 7'x5'x3' and, honestly, is shaped .. odd. I'm hoping to get most of everything done today and then I'll take pictures.
