It was very hot, and the tractor was a rough ride over this old field. I was bush hogging a heavy stand of nearly shoulder-high dog fennels. It wasn't my intention to cut the whole field, just some strips where I want to plant longleaf pines this winter.

Our land was a cut cornfield when we got it this past winter. We had the field plowed, then it got very wet. We had to wait for drier weather to construct a good road and do some ditching. The house and shed building have been coming along slowly, primarily due to the price and shortage of some building materials.

All the rain has been good for my father-in-law's garden and the weeds. Dog fennel, milk weed and sickle pod have taken over the place. The big field is lush and green, and to our absolute delight, quail calls are heard across the land. I've not heard or seen so many quail in years.

We have killdeers nesting in some of the open land, and I've recently installed bluebird nesting boxes at a couple of the property corners.

I've tried to hold the bush hogging to a minimum to avoid disturbing the quail and other ground-nesting birds too much during the nesting season. But I needed to cut the weeds before they got too high and seeded out. I will plow the strips a little later this fall to define the areas where we want to plant trees.

Some of the area that I've bush hogged will be adjacent to our pond. It will give us a clear ground area to spread the excavated dirt from the pond. The pond is just a skeleton now. We ditched along the property line earlier this year and constructed a low bank along what will eventually be the boundary of the finished pond. I've recently installed a flash-board riser at the point where an existing ditch leaves the property.

It took some time to get the aluminum flash-board riser fabricated by a drainage product supplier, but I had to wait anyhow for the ditch to dry out enough to install the apparatus. My father-in-law helped me install a corrugated plastic pipe under the bank at the drainage ditch, and now that it was drier, I took a shovel and dug out the soft mud from around the upstream end of the pipe.

I drove to Galivants Ferry to get the riser and to McBee to get a coupling that would connect the riser outlet pipe to the in-place corrugated plastic pipe. I needed a couple of days of dry weather to get the connection made. It took eight bags of ready-mix concrete to install a stable pad for the riser to sit on and four more bags to fill the sump in the riser. The sump acts as an anchor that will hold the lightweight contraption in place once it is partially submerged.

I used a hand-held level to make sure the outlet of the riser was level with the outlet of the pipe and that the riser itself was level and plumb. It was all good, so I backfilled around the pipe and the bottom of the riser with some of the excavated dirt. I still need to finish backfilling the bank behind the riser.

The next day when I returned to check on my handiwork, I was somewhat surprised to see that it had rained overnight and the entire area was under a few inches of water. I had gotten the work done just in time.

When the pond is dug, a portion of it will be below the bottom of the riser. Hopefully that part will hold water permanently. The portion above the bottom of the outlet will be raised and lowered at the riser depending on the amount of rain or how much water I am willing to pump from a well. Boards slid into the riser can be used to adjust the water level. Now, I just need some more dry weather to dig the pond.

My next project will be clearing out a small area for a wildlife food plot that can be seen from our future home. There is more work to do.

Email Dan Geddings at cdgeddings@gmail.com.

36 W Liberty St, Sumter, SC 29150 803-774-1200 newstip@theitem.com