If You Dig It…

Posted On May 4, 2026

It all began with a question from my daughter Abby last summer shortly after she purchased her new home.

“Dad, do you think at some point you might be able to dig me a pond?”

She’d finally closed on her new home and begun the moving in process by mid August. She was now the proud owner of a rural north country acre and a half plot, with a big lowland arch of what appeared to be goldenrod swale out back, bordered by poplar heavy woods.

I gave her back lot a quick study. In the tangled jungle of tall grass, willow, poplar saplings and aforementioned goldenrod swale, I perceived what appeared to me to be a damp spongy moss filled drainage area with good pond potential. However, since late August is generally not optimum digging time anyways, & not wanting to dive into a pond project without having a better feel for the lay of her land, I suggested we wait.

“Why don’t we give it ’til spring while we watch what the water tells us.”

So she agreed to wait through the winter in order to give me a chance to listen to her land water’s wishes & chat with the rain.

Now by this point in my ADK Outlaw’s life, I’ve dug more than my share of ponds. Most of them hand dug or dredged with a shovel. A few bigger ones dug with heavy equipment assist, which, after one near death experience attemting to operate a trackhoe myself, I hired out. Whoever said, “Rent a Bobcat. It’s easy. Anybody can do it.” is a stone cold liar. Sometimes it’s smarter to pay a guy than try & be the guy. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

What I have learned through my years of experience is that each pond has its own personality, and properly dug ponds quickly become magical places for all sorts of critters, particularly children and frogs.

So, in late April, once winter’s snows melted away, and early spring’s rain & snow runoff had slowly subsided, Abby & I donned muck boots, trekked out back and took a gander. With me I brought a shovel.

I quickly survey assessed the land, standing water pools, wet mossy willow locations, and area slope. I took up position in what I determined as the low ground center spot & stuck my shovel in the ground.

I told my daughter, “We can dig a pond here. Though I cannot guarantee that it will have water year ’round.”

WhileI suspect Abby’s initial concept was of a simple traditional round perimeter bermed pond, I could see where it looked to me like others may have dug drainage channels leading away from the yard to and through that spot before. Those channeled imprints gave my pond digger’s mind’s eye had a distinct vision.

“Roundish pond following the imprint of these remnant channels with a center island. Inlet channel front. Rear overflow outlet channel funneling towards the woods. Bridge.”

Abby nodded her agreement. “Oooh! A center island and bridge. I like that plan!”

With that agreed plan in place, we commenced digging. An easy error to make in digging a new pond is overdigging, meaning digging a bigger hole than there will be water to support it. I calculated that with a center island, we could dig a channel, a foot or so deep, throw all the sod & dirt to the center to build up the island, then cut back the outer bank over time to widen it out & even deepen it, as needed.

Late April’s ground was still saturated. The digging proved easy. We began with the inlet channel, cleaning out one that had clearly been there before, which gave us good guidance on where to start digging the outline circumference of what would soon be my daughter Abby’s new pond. Though our initial concept had been a round pond, by following existing channel hints as we dug, it ended up being three sided, almost heart shaped, by the time the initial outline channel was dug.

We started digging on the last Sunday in April. Abby dug & lugged gravel for the inlet channel alongside me all day. However, she had to go back to work Monday, and wouldn’t have days off again until the next weekend. I didn’t want to wait that long to continue our project, so with an agreed upon outline & plan, after a trip to Lowes for bridge building materials, I returned Monday to add more sod bulk to her island and continue our dig.

By Wednesday, day three, I had widened the channel to approximately 4-5 ft. all around. It had rained hard overnight Tuesday. Wednesday morning the channel was filled to the brim when I arrived. By the end of the day, I had it scooped out to a bit over a foot deep, with the pond channels measuring 20 ft., give or take, down each side. Even though the pond was full to the brim, it still being April, I didn’t want to get carried away and overdig. I figured that if we ended up needing or wanting more carrying capacity, we could dig around the outside perimeter and deepen it at any future point in time.

On Thursday I returned, beveled back the island and outer pond banks, worked on the rear outlet overflow drainage, then built and installed the pond’s planned front side bridge. I constructed this bridge differently than those out on my Monroe Wildlife Area Ponds.

Those I built rustically, with gaps between stringers (to save money as it required less wood), mounted on pressure treated logs. Here, since it was a yard pond and aesthetics more important, I chose to forego the gaps, building it on pressure treated 4×4’s, for a cleaner, more professional look.

I rarely see a pond project’s ultimate construct from the beginning. I see it in pieces. It slowly reveals its destiny to me as I’m digging. As I finished Thursday’s digging and installed the planned bridge, the next phase of our project suddenly came into view. I called Abby to consult before proceeding, reminding myself that my daughter is the property owner, after all.

“Abby. I finished the channel and put in the bridge. That gave me a vision for the next phase of our plan. How would you feel about TWO bridges, one front, one rear, with a nice stone center path crossing the island, connecting them, and entrance & exit trail son either end? I saw some nice 24″x12″ patio stones at LOWES. I measured. We’d need seventeen of them.”

My daughter was all in on that plan. So on Friday morning it was back to LOWES ( I really need to buy stock in that outfit), then out to our pond project, and that’s what I did.

On Saturday my daughter & I cut in the entrance and exit trails, then finished landscaping things out.

Our efforts were enthusiastically PAW patrol tested & approved.

I’m nost certain exactly what my daughter has in store for her new back yard frog pond. It’s all up to her now. I think I heard something about sunflowers & wildflowers.

What I do know, from experience, paraphrasing what a wise man once said:

“If you dig it, they will come.“

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Until Our Trails Cross Again:

ADKO