Excavation Begins

I worked four hours today and made a lot of progress. This photo makes it clear how shallow the rain garden pond is going to be; the areas that have been excavated to 6-8 inches aren’t going to be any deeper. There will be a deeper (18 inches before backfilling with compost-amended soil) thalweg along the center of the pond, and I’ll cut a slope of about 30 degrees from the edge to the center line. The piece of siding is covering the infiltration hole–a sure ankle breaker for someone like me stumbling around with shovel-fulls of soil. Better safe than sorry.

I definitely have more pebbles/boulders than I need. I’m dumping the excess in a quiet corner of the yard. I’ll figure out what to do with it later. I’ve been using this area to dump soil removed to plant a few shrubs and small trees, so the new material fits right in.

This is my version of being a sculptor, but I work with earth rather than clay.