Off-the-grid back-to-the-land homesteading articles

• Introduction to off-the-grid homesteading, living in a backwoods wilderness home
• Back to the Land: In Search of the Good Life
• Living totally off-the-grid
• Year-round gardening, winter gardening in the Pacific Northwest
• No-till mulch gardening in the Pacific Northwest
• Edible flowers for your salad bowl
• The best traditional and exotic fruit and nut trees for the temperate-climate homesteader
• Living on raw organic vegan foods on a self-sufficient homestead
• Organic building materials
• Organic home furnishings: bedding, curtains, bath
• Energy-efficient LED & solar lighting
• Enriching the soil: Compost & humanure
• Life with wildlife
• Keeping chickens, ducks, and geese
• Saving seeds for a never-ending bountiful harvest
• The joys of backyard clay-bottom ponds
• Water, well, and solar pump for the garden
• ©2000-2009 Touch Jamikorn. All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce without written permission from author.

The Joys of Natural Clay Bottom Ponds

Top photo: One of our 9 backyard clay-bottom swimming ponds. This is one of our favorites because it's fully exposed to the sun, which warms up the water to a comfortable temperature almost six months of the year. And it's not far from the house, which sits atop the hill in the distance. This photo is taken at the end of summer, in one of the driest years on record. We are grateful that the spring that feeds our pond doesn't run dry. To me, nothing evokes serenity and peacefulness as readily as the thought or sight of a pond in a natural setting.

The backyard pond

The pleasures you derive from a backyard pond after a long day of work in the sun have to be experienced to be believed. The water you dip into is refreshingly cool — at times almost icy cold — at first. As your swimming circulates the water in the pond, the warm (sometimes really warm) pockets of water hit you and relax your tired muscles. After 50 laps, you feel like a new person. The water is clean as can be, thanks to the aquatic and marginal plants whose roots and leaves constantly "clean" and launder impurities by recycling them into fertile inert minerals and clean gases. The spring in the bottom of the pond provides a regular inflow of fresh, cool water, keeping the pond from ever becoming stagnant.

We have a few lined ponds too in locations where there's not enough clay to hold the water, like in our chicken, duck, and goose area, but there really is nothing quite like a clay-bottom natural pond, which can be dug much more cheaply than you would think. Where we are, you can have a 60 foot by 40 foot pond that's 14 feet deep dug for around $1,500 depending on the soil. Which is not much considering the joys it will provide you year after year. It sure is cheaper than having to line the pond with rubber membrane or bentonite clay. There's no objectionable chemicals like chlorine in it, so it's safer for you and the environment, too. Plus you'll get to share it with all sorts of fascinating wildlife like blue herons, dragonflies, frogs, and all manners of insects and water critters. Even the beavers would come by from time to time for a look (they prefer ponds with a bigger surface area, and they have no problems making their own ponds which suit them better anyway).

After homesteading for 10 years, we would go so far as to say that a homestead needs backyard ponds, and not just one but several ponds, some to swim in and others for livestock and wildlife to enjoy. The water lilies in our ponds are always a sight to behold. Cattails provide year-round food to the homesteader (you can eat the roots or grind them into flour, use the pollen for flour, and then the cotton-like balls for pillow stuffing). The pond is always teeming with life, no matter the time of year.

The excavator is working on our newest pond. This one has a backdrop of evergreens that will look stunning in a couple of years after the dirt has settled and cattail, bulrushes, and reeds have taken over.

This is our biggest pond. It's almost two acres in size, with a island in the center (the beavers live in the tunnels under the island). It no longer has the rushing mini waterfall you see here because the beavers have dammed the outflow, with the result that the pond is now 3 feet higher, thanks to their incredible 3-foot-thick wall made of mud and branches. There's lot of wildlife here, presided over by the regal blue heron. A river otter sometimes comes over to fish. There are frogs galore during mating season, and all manners of wild birds, geese, and ducks living and nesting in the bulrushes. There was a pair of Canada Geese that came to set up a family at this very pond. Not six months later, a new family of 9 — the goslings now as big as their parents — flew away for their annual southward migration. There are so many plants and life in the water, it's incredible. The whole pond is surrounded by legions of cattails, bulrushes, and reeds. There are pondweeds, water grasses, white and pink water lilies (which the beavers love to eat, unfortunately), and water irises. There also used to be big willow trees which the beavers have since cut down.

Our big pond is a source of never-ending enjoyment, serenity, and tranquility for us. The water is pure, thanks to countless cattails, reeds, and rushes that process impurities through their roots, and the submerged weeds, floating plants, and water lilies that aerate and oxygenate the water. We are grateful to all these plants for making an eco-system of so much plant and animal life possible; if we had to "create" one on our own, it would have been a prohibitively expensive process that takes a long time to naturalize. A recent visit to a nursery shocked us: cattails, reeds, and bulrushes go for $12.99 a plant! Water lilies are $49.99 each, and floaters are $4.99 apiece. Oy!

This is a little pond we dug. It's 16 feet deep. We wanted to pump the water 110 feet up the hill and 300 feet away to use in our garden atop the cliff. The clay is a gorgeous blue, and there's a gushing spring in the bottom, even at the driest time of year. The water filled up 10 feet in no time. It's the perfect well with clear, clean water (this picture is taken a few hours after the digging; the water took on the color of the clay at first but turned clear as the sediments settled).

What's a pond without a water lily?

What's a pond without a pink water lily? ;) If only the beavers weren't so fond of water lilies! They eat them, leaves, flowers and all, when they see them. Thankfully, the waterlily "runs" fast via a network of rhizomes, so some always survive to give us a beautiful serene display.

Another one of our ponds, freshly dug. The spring has already started to fill the bottom. This pond is over 80 feet long and about 12 feet top to bottom (the perfect depth for swimming: it keeps the water cool enough to be fresh and warm enough to swim in).

Close-up of the blue clay in our spring / well.

A bona fide homestead backyard pond. The house sits atop the hill in the distance. What more does one need?

Another close-up of the blue clay, which fascinates us no end due to its gorgeous coloring and mineral-rich content said to be good for all kinds of ailments.

The resident beaver swimming in his (her?) pond that his (her?) family made.

In the evening, the beaver collects wood (their favorites are willow and fruit trees of all sorts (!!! — they've cut down a few of our fruit trees) and sits on the flat bank of the pond and peels off the bark of branches and twigs. Some get eaten and some get taken away to be stored in the beaver cottage for winter use.

A very useful marginal plant for eating, pillow-stuffing, chair-making, and water-purifying, cattail spreads by a network of crawling rhizomes.

Sesame sits atop a rock by the pond that we dug close to the house. It attracts birds and insects to help pollinate the garden and keep pests down.

The excavator as seen from the balcony. It requires a talented person at the helm to minimize disruption to the grounds as much as possible.

Spotlight on Denman Island Artists

• Matsuki Masutani (poetry) (page D1)
• Jane Masutani (country life -- with an edge) (page D3)

RawForLife Raw & Sustainable Living Ezine

• Rawganique.com Blogs
• Edible Flowers (page 1)
• Michael McCarthy: En Route to Portland (page 2)
• Rawganique Convergence (page 3)
• Random Ruminations (page 4)
• On Hybrids and Such (page 5)
• Steve Scharmer's 36-day Fast (page 6)
• The Simple Life IS the Good Life (page 7)
• Raw Veganism and the Protein Myth? (page 8)
• Rawganique Diet (page 9)
• September 11, 2001 (page 10)
• No-till Vegan Organic Gardening (page 11)
• Rawganique.com's Story
• Humanure (book review)
• Hemp Facts & Info
• Hemp & Raw Food Books (30% off)
• Free Gourmet Living Foods Recipes

All opinions expressed herein, excellent though they may be, are those of their authors and do not in anyway imply agreement from us or our staff. We publish them here solely in the spirit of sharing and in the hope that they may be of service to others who are also seeking a simpler, more sustainable, and healthier way of life. We do not give recommendations or advice and cannot be held responsible for them. Please seek advice from professionals if you need help. There are also many excellent books out there by qualified professionals to help you on your path to health. May your journey be a gentle, loving, happy, safe, and fulfilling one.

• Click here to return to top of page.
• Click here to return to Rawganique.com Ezine Home Page.
• Click here to go to Rawganique.com's Store Page.
• Click here to go to Rawganique.com's Home Page.