Let's hope so! As many of you know, we had a pond dug last year when the guys were here clearing the back pasture. Well, it has been a year now and we are just now able to keep water in the thing! It turns out that the bottom of the pond is just one giant rock vein....Remember the Roopville / Rockville blog post. This whole town is just one huge rock! Our pond has had a leak in it since day one. The first time we filled it up (pumped water from the creek) it took us almost 2 months. We noticed a leak on the other side of the dam at about halfway full. We soon realized that the leak was just too much to keep up with. We drained the pond. After much research about pond sealing, John ordered 2 tons of bentonite clay to put down on the bottom of the pond. He put an inch and a half layer down and then covered it with the dirt. This time the pond filled up in about 3 weeks. Wow! Big improvement! But, the leak was still pretty significant once the water reached a certain level. So, we drained it again. This time he used the middle buster and broke up lots of rocks that were near the surface, mixed in some red clay from near one of the banks and then just packed it over and over again with the tractor. This time the pond filled up in about one week!! It still has a small leak on the other side of the dam but it is manageable. We only turn the creek pump on one day a week to fill it back up. We are hoping that it will eventually seal off and we can put some fish in the spring. My "little farmers" are just itching to catch some catfish!!
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