Its about dam time!!!

[biggkidd]

Got ya thinking dirty didn't I.

Heres what we did this weekend.

This is the small creek behind our camper up at the property.



As you can see the water is only a inch or two deep.
After a few tons of dirt and rock dug by hand and roughly 60 sand bags filled with earth.





When we left it still wasn't finished or full.





As you can see we aren't very good dam builders. Quite a bit of water is going under and through the dam.



I would guesstimate we have about a 2000 gallon reservoir now. Still lots to do and I need to pick up some benninite to help seal the leaks.

I think Nickole and I moved 4+ tons of dirt and another 2-3 tons of rock so far. I am so worn out I didn't even go to work today.

Larry

[GuglioLS]

Larry K,

I didn't know you were a beaver? That looks pretty cool. It will be nice to see the water pooled up behind the dam. Got any frogs or crawdads in there? Maybe this will invite some real beavers and they will take over where you left off? I here they do a damn good job stopping up leaks.

Larry.

[quikduk]

In honor of Larry K's achievement and Larry G's animal reference, I will recall a great movie line from Naked Gun that is appropriate here...

"Nice beaver!" "Thanks, I just had it stuffed."

;D

[3RRL]

Boy, was Leslie Nielson ever right about Priscilla! She is still sexy as all get out.

Kidd, that's a good idea to get a little water reserve like that. What is the stream flow at other times of the year? Will you need to make the dam larger or will it wash away? You might consider adding a little behind it for a distance at least twice the height just in case.
Get your tractor over there and use your (future) grapples to move some more rocks to it. If Larry G gets the steel cut per my drawings, I'll weld it up and send it to you. All you need to do is get the cylinder and install and plumb it.
You need a set of bucket grapples anyway!

[studor]

If I could I would be happy to send you lots of beavers ( the rodent kind with big orange teeth!!). Those little guys would have done that in a night!! I shoot about 4 or 5 a year on my property -- yes legally.The price of fur has dropped so much that nobody will trap them anymore and they can flood 20 acres of my meadow in no time.
The other thing you might think about is adding a "gate" of two pieces of angle iron uprights with wood slats that you can pull out to control the water level. That way you can create a spill way to protect the damn if the water does rise too high.

[biggkidd]

Thanks for all the great replies. I just got up from a long nap still worn out.

Larry,

We do have some crawdads & minnows. Haven't seen any tad poles yet.

Ken,

I needed a good laugh. Thanks

Rob,

I don't know just how much water that creek is good for. This is just a test to see whats possible. Not to sure I want to get the tractor down there. Its a 1/1 slope, that would make the pucker factor a little high for me. I would love to have one of yalls custom grapples. We are going to back it up with more rock just ran out of time and energy.

Studor,

We have a beaver pond not far away. Haven't seen any on our land yet. Might try your spillway idea if the water gets up to high.

Thanks again
Larry

[biggkidd]

Hi Guys,

I have to report that our dam didn't stand up to 3" of rain in one night. Its really not that bad though. Here are a few pics. In the last one you can see one of the sand bags over 100 feet from the dam.











You can see it was still holding a lot of water back.



We only lost a bit of the top two rows of bags so all in all it did ok I think. Once the water goes down and we have time we will build it back stronger. I did do a quick repair and got the water back up a little higher.

Thanks
Larry

[3RRL]

Wow, that creek turned into a small river in a hurry!
Good luck with rebuilding the dam Larry. You need to get with it pretty soon to save that water for the Summer months. It's almost here.
I like the idea of creating a spillway which will keep the rest of your dam intact and the water level at an acceptable level.
Rob-

[red]

Larry looks like mother nature created a spillway for you! Remember seeing somewhere someone stacked up redi-mix bags of concrete and drove rebar thru the sacks to pin them together. Also use a piece of metal culvet with a piece of steel thru it to act as a release gate. -Ed

[biggkidd]

Rob,

Your right about saving that water for summer. Thats just what I was trying to do. I couldn't believe how much water was coming down the little creek after that rain. I think it will be ok once we back it up with more rocks.

Red,

I am trying not to use any concrete since this is below the radar. If I need to remove it later if someone bitches I would rather not need a jack hammer. I doubt there will ever be a problem but just in case.

Thanks for the comments guys.

Larry