El Sobrante Oasis

The journey begins

This is the very first piece of equipment that I purchased for LittleBig. A used Kubota mini excavator. The whole reason this pond project began was because I wanted to test the excavator out to see if it was good enough to rent out. It was!

The pond starts to take shape! This is where I had to start digging a little more carefully, shaving layers and trying to smooth out the sides and bottom. I also had to pause at this point to seek out some advice from Walter Ramos, from California Falls and Fountains, who helped me develop a plan!

Even my daughter jumped into action with a jack hammer! Here she is carving out the spot where the skimmer will sit. I often comment on how kids these days don’t seem to know the value of work, but she is forcing me to change the way I think about that!

Got the skimmer box in place! Next step is to dig out a trench where the pipes will go from the skimmer to the biofalls, put in the pond liner and start rocking!

Check out these boulders I found on free craigslist! Had to drive out to Fremont for them, but well worth the trip. I got about 9 of them in total!

Rockin and rollin! Yup, I’m kinda one of those dads. I also found a bunch of these rocks on free craigslist. I would say I had to buy about half of all the rocks and about half I found for free. This saved me a lot on the cost!

The nerve-racking part. I had to be really careful laying these rocks into the pond. The liner was pretty think, but the rocks were pretty huge. Too bad I didn’t take pictures, but for the big rocks, I had to tie a cable to my skid steer, and the other end to a tree, and used some pulleys and ratchet chains to move and set them gently into place.

In retrospect, I should have doubled up the liner in the corners of the pond, but I didn’t think about it till afterward. That’s what I was thinking about as I was filling the pond with water for the first time. I let it sit for a few days to see if there were any leaks. Luckily, there were none! Phew!

Home pond project

Halfway there! After check the pond for leaks, I finished rocking out the rest! Next phase is the landscaping!

Unfortunately, I had to pull out a couple of small redwood trees. Fortunately, free craigslist came to the rescue again. So in this process I got some free rocks and gave away some free trees!

I’ve never built the landscaping around a pond before and don’t have any experience with design work. So for this part of the process, I reached out to a friend, Tyler, who helped me put my family’s ideas onto paper.

Luckily for me, Root Volume had a small break in their schedule and were able to come help with the landscaping portion of the project. They did an awesome job beautifying the area with plants, flagstones and a dg pathway. I’ll be highlighting a future project of theirs in the next post! In the mean time, check them out at:

Completed pond

Aside from a few small details and some seating, the project is complete and turned out great! Reach out on Nextdoor and let me know what you think!

List of LittleBig tools used on this project:

1. Mini excavator

2. Mini skid steer

3. Various pulleys

4. Jackhammer

5. Plate compactor

6. Misc. hand tools