Clearing the dam to get access to the water and maybe make a swimming area was a good project for the onset of some hot days.
Even dams need to be maintained, and ours had become so overgrown around the edges that when we first moved in there was no clear access to the water. Bulrushes are the main culprit. They grow quickly and extend as rafts out over deep water. In a creek they might be washed away but our dam doesn’t get the currents to do that.
We also inherited a plastic boat from the last owners, so my first clearing job was to make a clearing through to open water from the dam wall, where the boat was parked and the rushes seemed thinnest.
That got me out into the dam on the boat, and it was fairly easy to widen the channel bit by bit.
That was last Spring, but this year with Summer approaching Bill thought it would be good to have a proper open channel near the pump where track access is better, even if it’s just so we can throw a stick in for the dogs to cool them down on a hot day.
Then we had a few days of hot weather, the perfect opportunity to down the hoe and get clearing the dam. You can see from the before photo that the prospect was daunting. I couldn’t even see the open water from the bank. I knew from getting in to fix the pump that the bank drops away sharply even though the weeds make a flat surface.
The only thing for it was to start at the bank and dig a channel in.
Once I had pulled out a channel I could paddle the boat around and get access to the shore, although just swimming in and pulling tended to be faster if not as comfortable.
Another way to tackle it was to bash down a raft of bulrushes and walk out on it. The whole lot is floating in deep water but I could get enough stability to work along the edges. You’d want to be a good swimmer as it all seemed a little perilous with the possibility of going through and under the raft of vegetation.
Bill came down to help and had the brilliant idea of getting a rope, chain and machinery involved. We eventually bought a towing strap (5 tonne rating) which I could swim in and pass under the raft. Bill could then pull big chunks up onto the shore, which made the work much faster and less strenuous.
As the raft of vegetation tended to pull in from the right as we pulled the end in, we ended up with a huge pile of weed on the shore, which we have left to compost.