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making a pond and a well


mel b3
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Had a look on the EA website about water extraction. It costs about £100 to apply and its full of forms. Think I will stick with digging out the soggy bit on ours.

 

 

chances are if you have a soggy area on your patch....it might be the top of an aquifer of a spring / artesin well so it might be worth digging it out and finding the source and line it somehow...and you might end up with a decent product....but if you are in a low area ...beaware it might be full of nitrates and chemicals from run off.....

 

once you have isolated the source....take a sample...(usually about a litre) and send it away for a portable water sample test....not very expensive.. :good:

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We are on a farely level bit part way up a slope from the river.There are some sheep fields just up from us, but the fields are fairly well rotated on whats being grazed and not over grazed.

I will keep my fingers crossed they aren't full of chemicals as they don't seem to have that vivid green that over-nitrated grass does.

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If you dig a well to keep the pond filled up you could use a solar powered capillary pump to transfer water. Just leave it running continually. You would need to make sure the pump had either auto cut off or could be run dry, so the pump didn't damage when water levels are low.

hello, thats a good idea, i thought of that but did not think solar would have enough energy, :good:

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hello, thats a good idea, i thought of that but did not think solar would have enough energy, :good:

We use a 120w solar panel to provide all the lighting in the caravan and charge phones, android 8"tablets and a few lightweight power tools and keep the caravan battery charged. A small pump shouldn't need a lot depending on what height you want the water lifting.

If you just want it to trickle keep it topped up a small panel should be Ok. If you want a more powerful pump you will need a bigger panel. You can buy outdoor water features that have solar powered pumps.

OH is the one who set our panel up and built the controller for it as he is a retired electronics engineer, but you can buy them with the solar panel kit already fitted.

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Talking of wells my dad was one for tall stories we was working in this old tin bungalow in a nearby village. , and dad said to me boy if you go to the corner of the bungalow near the back door start pokering around you will find an old well He said it's the last one your grandad had dug in Hampshire I did find the well but I don't know if it's the truth or not But on grand ads death certificate it said plumber , my granddad was gassed twice in ww1 Had one lung died in 56 I was born 54

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still worth doing a water test.................for many years it was common on sheep pastures to spray with CuSO4 (copper sulphate) against liver fluke....this might have built up over the years and been slow to leech out... :good:

Will check that out then when we get round to making the pond.

I have got a British Berkafeld filter system that takes most of the rubbish out of water to make it safe to drink too.

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thank you for all of the information guys, its all exactly what i was looking for. ideally i would have been digging a well by hand (maybe with the help of a mini digger) and a couple of mates , then pump water from the well via a pump running on solar power (as pointed out by lori) , i hadnt really considered that the water might be contaminated (as pointed out by ditchie) as it was running underground and would be filtered (shows how much i know) , i had imagined running it through some kind of natural filter bed before it ran back into the pond. im not sure that it would be worth going to all that trouble and expense for something that might not work , it would probably just be much easier (and more sensible) to wait until something came along with a pond that already holds fish , or next to a river , rather than spending an awful lot of cash ,on a piece of land thats already quite expensive for its size.

 

now the biggie.

 

we visited the piece of woodland for the second time yesterday , just to spend a little more time there and get a feel for the area . it was fantastic , sitting there peacefully on the bench by the pond , listening to a woodpecker hammering away at a tree trunk, and watching both roe deer and muntjack deer passing along the deer trails , the constant activity of pheasant poults from a release pen on the other side of the wood kept me entertained for hours , its was heaven and something that ive dreamed of my whole life , i was on the verge of calling the seller and saying yes , until i asked her good self what she thought about it , she said "its ok for a couple of hours , but i wouldnt fancy coming here every weekend". it really knocked the wind out of my sails , in my head id already , got the highseats set up , given the caravan a camo paint job , built log benches and tables on the picnic area around the pond , and cleared a couple of areas for friends to pitch their tents on when they visit. . my bubble is well and truly burst . plans are on hold at the moment until ive decided if murder or divorce are the best option , or until she makes her mind up about woodland.

 

thank you for all of the above advice and experiences guys , its still very much on the cards.

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We are lucky. We both love our Woodland and love it more each time we go. As its coppice with a lot of other trees its a voyage of adventure each time we go and lots of places nearby to visit with white roads through the Welsh mountains and the coast only an hour away.

There is a pond in the wood on another plot. Sadly we rejected that one as the pond area is the only level bit on that plot and the rest of it was too steep for us. Our plot is on the side of the wood that is more level.

We looked at 14 woods before choosing this one. Making each trip a day out with picnic. We refined our ideas as we looked at more woods and compromised on the pond as this wood ticked the rest of our like list.

Ours is secluded with no public footpaths anywhere near it, but good access. No public roads bordering it to worry about trees coming down on the road or people hopping in off a road.

 

Woodlands with fishing are rare and expensive. We looked and a lot with river frontage have the fishing rights sold off or are very dear.Good sized, full year round fishable ponds are dear too.

 

We often have BBQs with using our own wood and the Children and Grandchildren visit too and love den building and climbing. We have a climbing rope and tree swing for them. A small Seasonal brook to get muddy in. They go metal detecting, although so far we have only found a rusty spade end its a childs treasure.

The dogs love it to tear round in with no worries about other folks dogs.

We have built a composting toilet which works very well even in the hot weather.

Long term its a good investment as they are increasing in value.

A few rabbits and squirrels too and occasionally we see muntjac. :)

We do as little or as much as we feel like when we go, sometimes we just go and chill out.

Edited by loriusgarrulus
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I take it when u mention pheasants the sporting/stalking rights are sold with the land?

 

I think fish need something like 6-8ft deep water as a minimum to keep them cool in summer so it does make it harder to dig a pond that deep.

 

A;so u really do need running water into a pond to keep it oxygenated (well for trout u do) we use dto have a fishing pond and the fish always faught poorly which was meant to be down ot the lack of oxygen.

 

If the area is wet is should be relatively easy to put a shallower pond in which would be great for wildlife/ducks (althou shooting flighted ducks in a wood can be ackward depending on their flightline) u'd be amazed how much water can run out a field drain if u could tap into a few fields drains u'd be laughing

 

Ditchman/johnuk

Is that liner expensive? and do u have toline the whole bottom of pond?

I tried to dig 1 last year mibee tennis court size or bigger just for getting dogs swimming/training in water but found a clay tile, I sealed it up the best I could around the general area but just doesn't hold much water. I have diverted a small burn into it but its not a massive flow and leak is obviously equal to it.

John from ur post it sounds like u just stuck some liner down over the aeras where the tiles where?

Do u think heavy plastic would do if I buried it over the area around the clay tile,

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evening guys.

 

just a quick thank you to loriusgarrulus.

 

yvonne and her husband andrew , very generously invited lin and myself up to their woodland yesterday , to have a look around , and see what could be done (to try to convince my other half that we should get some) . all i can say is , fantastic ! , theyve made a brilliant job of sculpting the wood to suit their needs , and at the same time , theyre improving the wood , by planting native species of trees etc , theyre both passionate about their little piece of heaven , and theyve very much got it sorted , the shower and toilet block was awesome , and the fridge made by using plant pots and witchcraft was absolutely fantastical(im still not convinced that it wasnt a trick) lol.

im even more convinced now , that i want a chunk of woodland , but more importantly , my wife is now convinced that we should be buying some, and has spent most of the day trawling the web looking for something suitable :yes::yahoo: .

 

thank you again yvonne and andrew , your time and kindness was very much appreciated , you answered a thousand questions , and gave me a thousand ideas. it was fantastic to meet two such nice genuine people , that have such a passion for the countryside.

 

mel and lin.

 

ps , youre riot of dogs , are equal to a barrel of monkeys lol , weve been chuckling about them today.

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Where is the one with the fallow and muntjacand how much?

 

You not interested anymore?

im very interested in it , im just waiting for her good self to realise that its the right one . sorry if i said fallow , it was roe and munty , a couple of my shoots have fallow so i might have confused myself.

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Would the other half be more amenable to moving to house with some suitable ground with it Mel?

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It's a long story ,but I did reach the point where I considered it ,that's where I put the brakes on and rolled things back a bit ,I really don't need that kind of stress in my life.

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