"We don't do debt," Darryl Pifer tells me as we're talking about his homestead pond. Tucked between the rugged ridges and rolling hills of southern Kentucky, Cedar Ridge Farm is a work in progress, as most homesteads are. Like other homesteaders, the Pifers have several projects they are working on at any given time. One of those projects is their new pond. "I wanted to start it right after we bought the property six-and-a-half years ago," he explained. "But the funds just weren't there, so we waited."

The wait may have been longer than Darryl liked, but it gave the family time to get to know their property. "We just kept working and developing it," explains Darryl. As they went about establishing a garden where the old tobacco field was, then an orchard, hay field, and livestock pens, the Pifers developed a familiarity with their land, helping them to craft an efficient and sustainable homestead. The pond is an integral part of their self-reliant lifestyle.

The Pifer's quarter-acre pond serves as a water reservoir for emergencies, and watering livestock, the orchard, hay field, and garden.

Darryl hired a neighbor with a trackhoe to dig the pond. He borrowed another neighbor's backhoe to make the banks of the pond the exact height, and pack the dam to his liking. The Pifers also wanted the pond to serve as their swimming hole, so they put in a dock that serves as a jumping-off point for their three sons. The pond covers one-quarter of an acre. "Originally, it was supposed to be one-third of an acre," he says, "but as the digging started there was a lot of top soil to move, and it started to become more expensive than we wanted, so we settled for a quarter-acre." In some places it is 14-feet deep, with an average depth of six feet. He estimates it holds around 400,000 gallons.

So, why would someone want to build a quarter-acre pond? "We built it for several reasons. One is for a water reservoir, just in case it's ever needed, because water is important. It also works for watering our garden, hay field, and small orchard which lay below it, so we can use a gravity feed for irrigation." The pond also serves as a water source for their livestock. The animals don't have direct access to the pond. Water is siphoned and carried to them. This works well for the Pifer's small menagerie.

Darryl contacted the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and they came out to do a pond-site evaluation. This is where things got interesting. "They said we didn't have enough clay under the topsoil to hold water," he explains. "If you don't have good clay, you need a pond liner. And for a large pond, it gets expensive."

The Pifer family: Anne, Darryl, and children Naomi (3), Malchiah (6), Ramiah (8), and Jessica (13).

Smaller garden or landscaping ponds can be lined with a variety of materials, including PVC and cement, but large multi-functional ponds like the Pifer's must be lined with clay, and not just any kind of clay. Large ponds are lined with sodium bentonite clay because it expands when mixed with water, and keeps its swelling properties throughout its use, unlike calcium bentonite clay, which is fine for facial scrubs and the like, but isn't worth a plug nickel as a pond liner. Fortunately for Darryl, he decided not to order the sodium bentonite immediately, choosing instead to dig first. After the topsoil was removed, Darryl discovered that there were strips of clay beneath it. The strips varied in width and depth, but he was convinced there was enough there to do the job. He was right.

The Pifer's pond is filled entirely by rainwater runoff from the ridges. But ponds can also be spring-fed. "It just depends on the site," explains Darryl. However, as Darryl so aptly points out, there is no sense in digging a pond that can't be filled by Mother Nature. "You have to know your site pretty well," he says.

The pond is stocked with fish, not exactly the kind of fish Darryl had in mind, but he's not complaining. "I meant to stock it with bluegill," Darryl says. "In fact, that's what I ordered, but I got red-eared sunfish. They're related, so that's fine. We'll also put some bass in there. They're predators, and they'll keep the population of the sunfish in check. We have to achieve a balance between predator and prey so we don't get overrun one way or the other. It's harder in a pond that's smaller than one acre, but it can be done."

What about aeration? Surely a pond as big as the Pifer's needs to be aerated. "I could hook into the grid and run power to it and set up some sort of windmill system, but I don't want to. In fact, we are moving towards being completely off-grid," explains Darryl. Instead, he has decided to let nature aerate the pond. "If your pond is protected by trees, and the wind can't blow on it, that's when you have a problem with stagnation, and the fish can't breathe. But that's not a problem here. What I basically don't want to do is spend money on electricity to aerate a pond, or on food to feed fish, so I'm going to accept the challenges and issues raised by not doing that."

The Pifer's pond is 14 feet deep in some areas, and fills naturally with runoff from the surrounding ridges.

Homesteaders who are considering digging a pond on their property should be mindful of a couple of things: 1) Many states regulate the digging of ponds on private property. Property owners who don't want to find themselves on the wrong side of a legal action should check with their local NRCS office or county officials to be sure that such an undertaking is allowed; 2) Siting is crucial. A pond in the wrong place isn't a pond at all. It's just a hole in the ground; 3) Without sufficient planning, costs can quickly get out of control. 4) Flexibility is a must, and legislation pending in Congress could place control of all privately owned ponds under the jurisdiction of the federal government. (See "But the levee was dry: The truth about the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007" in the July/Augus 2009 issue of Countryside).

Darryl tells me that the pond is nearly full and working just the way he had hoped. That's good, because he has other projects that need his attention, like the timber-framed straw bale house the family is working on. Readers who want to know more about life at Cedar Ridge Farm can check out Darryl's blog, New Kentucky Homestead, at http://kyhomestead.blogspot.com.