In Day 9 of the "100 Days of Building a Homestead" series, the crew uses large excavators and graders to clear and drain the main pond, then digs out a nearby silt pond to a depth of about 12 feet, extracting roughly 24 cubic yards of rich, dark soil. The soil is piled for drying and future use, expanding the usable pasture area. The team discusses converting the excavated area into a south‑facing beach, a playground with boulders, and a potential house site, while noting equipment efficiency, teamwork, and upcoming tasks such as further mucking and boulder relocation. The narration is informal, enthusiastic, and interspersed with casual banter.
Chapters
Day 9 of 100 Days of Building a Homestead, and we got lots of help.
Big machines today.
It's huge.
Clearing around the pond, and it takes no time. Trying to drain our pond so the excavators can work on it today, hopefully to muck it out. It's gonna be really good for our pasture.
Guys, he's coming in probably less than an hour, so we should go milk.
And again, oh yeah, let's go to the tractor videos on Amazon. Those are awesome, right?
Apparently this is going Unbelievably smooth. Nobody's poopy, everybody's cooperating.
I don't know what's been going on.
Good news is this isn't taking long and the graders are not here yet.
Yeah, they do.
Yeah, buddy.
This week, my man, you're getting off of it.
Yep.
When?
Wednesday? Thursday? Thursday.
How's that feel? Good. Back up, back up, way back up.
That'd be scary.
Wow, look how deep those were.
Wow, he's sitting up here.
No, I mean, like— You not eat?
You didn't eat breakfast?
Sure.
Good, I got your new shoes.
This is the silt pond. We're gonna dig it out for 4 feet and still collect some mist instead of going down to our pond.
Yes, why don't we make this a polar plunge area?
You could, you could polar plunge in that. I want you So look at this soil that it's created. Black gold, yards and yards. We're piling it up over there to dry. Property just seems so much bigger now that we've cleared him. I guess it is. This. Dug out the silt pond, starting to fill up. We have another pond basically, guys. Woo! The silt pond, all the silt stuff. Yeah, they had to tear it up a bit to get it up there, but the richness of that will more than make up for it across our entire farm. It's already drying out out. Internet, what is this blue? I'm guessing there's probably 24 cubic yards of material here. That's 3 dump truck loads, and that's just the silt pond. What he was doing with his branches, but he puts his branches in the pond so that he can actually get out there in it. That's smart. He didn't get stuck. Cut deep enough for you yet? I guess. It's about 12 feet deep.
Whoa, what are they hitting over there? That green stuff?
I think it's just clay.
Taste like an animal. Caught us in the moment. Come on, let's keep it going. I'm on the rise. We make it happen. Come on, let's do it. The time is now, right now. Keep it moving. We're going crazy, loosey-goosey. Don't matter how you do it, you just got to keep it moving. out.
Keep it moving. We make it happen. Come on, let's do it. The time is now, right now. Keep it moving.
We're going crazy, no matter how you do it, you just got to keep it moving.
Looky here! I'm excited about this! We got our stairs!
Holy smokes! We got so much done with that piece of equipment right over there. It's absolutely incredible. We've dug this pond probably 12 feet down in the middle. Mucked the branch. Like, it looks like a totally different place, doesn't it? Tomorrow, I cannot wait. You're not gonna want to miss it. We're gonna dig out for a beach here. That's south-facing. So this is gonna be an amazing place for a beach. We've left a tree for little picnics under here. Possible house site up the hill. More mucking tomorrow. Tomorrow, another beach right in here, then a river, rock, pebble, branch. I'm kind of wondering, could he transplant this, some of these bigger boulders from over here to the side of our pasture to there to the pond? We have some boulder features. We'll see. We'll get the noise and the look, and the kids will be able to boulder and, and have fun in there, and this will be very approachable, very playground-ish. It'll be nice. That's tomorrow. Let's do it.
