#102 Started digging our lake and discovered these abandoned pipes

In season one, you saw that we found a small water reservoir right next to base camp. We cleared around and went in to explore this delicious water. But we got busy with a lot of other stuff and somehow forgot about it. So now, two years later, we're going to give it a big makeover. Welcome to a new Project Camp update. Hey, so here we are next to our lake, pond, water reservoir, I don't know how you call this. We cleaned this up in the beginning when we came to this land actually, but left it ever since. In the beginning there was a lot of water, but now it's middle of summer so it almost dried up. But there's still some water. So currently it's quite a good time to rework it. Because then we can do it before the winter season starts and all the rain gets in. And also becomes more and more useful to have this reservoir around. Because as you can see from above, here's base camp and here's the water reservoir. It's currently a bit overgrown around Mimosas. But it's quite useful to have a big chunk of water here in case of fire or just to cool down. So before we're going to work on it, let me show you what it actually looks like. And I'm going to show you first person, so you can really see why we want to rework this thing with a GoPro. Alright, so first up, this is what it looks like from here. And as you can see, a lot of vegetation started to grow back around the edges. Which could be cleaned up. Secondly, as you can see here, it started to really erode. So the whole area, the wall is super steep. It was really dug out. Which every now and then it just collapses like here. So slowly the whole wall erodes. Also there. The only thing really that keeps it up is all the Mimosa trees in there. So the roots maintain a little bit of the structure. And the whole wall is really just crumbling apart. And these roots still give some strength to it. It's very delicious water. And it's still pretty deep I think in the middle. And here in the back, there's still a lot of old dead trees from the fire. As you can see, burned down. But this height difference is really big. So here's a big road on top. And slowly this erodes more as well. So we want to clean it up. And the reason why it looks like this is that the previous owner saw some water here and just dug it out. So there was more water available. But that's why the walls are so steep. And they also say there used to be a pipe from here to the bottom of the land. We've never seen it, but the neighbors keep talking about it. To distribute the water across the land. So maybe we'll find that when working on it. It becomes a bit swampy. And the water level, as you can see, is now here. But originally it's there. Like right under where all the roots start. Which is more in the winter time. So it would be here. So it's quite a big difference that it fills up in the winter. And also Mattia dropped in the first year we came here and we started cleaning this up. Pliers here or scissors? Yeah, my phone just dropped in there. No, the scissors just dropped in there. So maybe we're going to find that back as well. I hope so. Curious what it looks like. But let me show you the coolest part. Which we can see now right here. Because it's summer and the water level is low. But this used to be a natural spring. So here it's very moist. Because somewhere in this area was a natural spring. Which makes sure the water just flows here. You can see little bits of it. So I'm not sure if you can see it. But here you can see the water coming back. Even though the water level is higher than there. So this is somewhere the spring used to be here. But not sure if it's still active. How much it gives. So the moment we start digging. I guess we're going to see better. So the plan is we're first going to clean up a little bit around it. Take some dead trees out. Also here's a lot of stuff laying around. Then we're going to pump the lagoon empty. So we can see how deep it actually is. To see if we find some other things there. And also to see if the spring renews itself. And what the water table level actually is. And then with a digger we're going to clean up these eroded edges. And put them under an angle. So it doesn't collapse anymore when the water gets in. And then we also start cleaning up in that area where we find a lot of mimosas. We're going to keep the mimosas for the roots. But in between there's a lot of firewood. Which is a lot of dead wood. Which is a fire hazard. So we're going to clean that up as well. So hopefully in the end there's going to be a nice area here. But let's see. Never done this before. Start easy. Pulling out some brambles. And spiky bushes. So the front part is now clean. Clean enough. Now we need to go to the back. But let me bring you closer. So you see what it looks like. Because it's a bit of a rough. So the back part here. We never cleaned it up before. So there's still a lot of old dead trees. And it's very steep and eroding. So it's going to be a bit harder to clean this up. But I guess we're just going to go for it. So it's now all cleaned up. As you might have seen it's pretty steep. And everything crumbles down. But there are a few natural things that happen to prevent this. Let me show you. So what happens is that every now and then. A stick falls sideways. Like here or there. And it gets stuck between the trees. So it cannot slide down. And then all the little smaller sticks and branches. They get stuck behind there. Which creates a bit of a terrace. Also a little bit of a stairs. And this is useful because it prevents everything sliding down. So you have a bit of a shield. It also retains some water. Which is good. And in the end. The main thing is that not the whole lake gets full of sticks. Now there actually are little sticks. Which we just took out. We're going to use the big ones. To really build more of these enforcements between the trees. So we create a bit of terraces that we can walk up. And this whole area is a bit stronger. So that's going to be the principle. Now we're just going to put more up. So next we need to make some space. So we have the water here. Then there's some sort of a pathway here. And Mimosa is there. But the digger needs to come. In order to make this wall less steep. So we need more space here. So we're going to chop some of the Mimosa trees. So the trees are right there. And we're going to use a chainsaw. Because it's quite a lot of them. So everything is now chopped. Now comes the fun part. Move it. And I've got Jaime helping out for that. Alright so it's cleaned up here. All the trees are chopped here. Now next we need to empty this water leftover that is in there. To see what's actually down. See how deep it is. Maybe we find that plier. Or the pipe that the neighbours say. Or maybe we even find a suitcase of gold. Could easily be the case. Let's see and pump it up. This is our water pump. It has two hoses. One where the water goes in and one out. The downside is the incoming hose is not super long. That's just the one we had. And I made a filter from an old little jerry can. With some holes to make sure all the dirt and stuff doesn't go in the pump. So ideally now we just put it in there. And let it run. And it's empty. Let's see. As we were pumping the water we ran into some problems. One of the pumps stopped all the time. And if it was running it actually didn't really suck anymore. We tried a bunch of things but not sure what's going on. Still new to the world of water pumps. So we asked an old expert for help. Our neighbour Antonio. And his 50 year old water pump. Look at that beast. And he has his own filter system. An improvisation guy just like us. So to get going connect the tube on the bottom. Then the top. Do a little magical thing with the engine. Wind up the old rope. Get some grip on that kitchen knife. And do one good pull. Very smooth. So water is coming out. But could be more. So we need some wiggling. And meanwhile the pump is going strong. Yeah sure, some leaks. But the lid is popping and the knife is dancing. And the water flowing. So now we just have to wait for the water to go. And the last part was pretty hard to empty up. Reaching the bottom got very muddy and stuff started to appear. I see something there. And it also got very smelly. Look at all those gas bottles around my feet popping up when walking around. Ok but now it's empty enough for the next step. The digger. The first step for the digger is to take out all the dirt that is in there. Some of it is trash but mostly fallen sticks, burned trees and some leaves. While digging we saw a lot of frogs jumping away. Especially here in the front part. So the frog team jumped in to rescue. Can you show? Yeah but it's gonna jump out. We don't really know, it's an experiment. But we saw all these frogs that were going near the tractor. And we thought ok let's try to get some to recreate the biodiversity. So in the bucket we have many many things to be accounted for. Almonds. We have like 10 of these. And where is the frog? We have frogs but they are a bit shy. So that was basically a day of digging. Most of the dirt is out. Especially the last shallow part had a lot of it laying around. And the solid and organic stuff that came out was put here on the side. It was surprisingly grey compared to the rest of the soil around. But let me show you what it looks like. So the lake is now dug out. All the dirt is out. And it's quite a lot deeper than we thought. Which is cool. It can hold a lot of water. And we also found a few things. So I think we found the pipe that the neighbours always talk about. That goes to the big ruin. The community centre on the bottom of the land. So there used to be this pipe. So the water from here can be used there. We think it's this pipe. But we're not really sure. Because we also found another pipe. A bit smaller. Slightly different position. We're not sure if water goes in or out. It's kind of a mystery. I don't know how you would ever find out where these pipes go. So if you have any suggestions, let us know. And it's now also pretty clear to see where the spring is. Or where the water is flowing. Because it's now all empty. And here you see a little bit of water sipping through. And it's really the highest point. You can see it going down here. Here. And now it's accumulating there at the back. And he actually dug a nice hole. So now we can put the water pump there. Because currently we're having a break. Guy's having some lunch. So we can put the pump there to make sure it doesn't fill up too much. So then he comes back. And we're going to work on the edges. To make sure they're less steep. And the scissor fell somewhere here. But I don't think we're going to find it. And if we're going to find it, it's now on the top. So maybe later, when we just walk around on the land, we would find it. Clean shots, eh Dave? Yeah, it looks a bit like a battlefield at this point. And from above it actually looks like a big cow poop. And next it was time to reduce the steepness on the sides. To reduce the inclination. And this was quite satisfying to watch. Next, the guy with the digger still came back. To do some fine-tuning work with the smaller digger. We didn't film much of this. Because it didn't seem very interesting. Until he found this. It was the scissor Mathieu dropped in the water. So after, what, two years in here. We found it back when he was digging. He found our old wrench. Wrench? Clippers? I don't know what you call it. It's a bit rusty. I got pretty curious of the condition of it now. And see if it still works. So here we are at the workspace. Trying to see if we can fix this one up. All the parts are replaceable. So it should be possible. And some parts are still in good condition. But let's see if we clean it up. So the aluminum handle with the rubber is still very good. Only the real metal parts here are rusty. I'm not sure if we can just clean it up. The rust away and it would still work. And possibly this is the blade that cuts. I'm not sure if we can still manage to sharpen that one. And this spring here is missing as well. So here's the blade. But it's still a little bit rough. And unsharp. So I found a replacement kit. Which has a blade and this thing. This thing we need anyway. But for the blade I guess I'm trying to see if I can actually sharpen this one. Before we're going to need a new one. So then we can keep this for another point in time. And for that I'm just going to give it a try with a sharpener. And a sharpening stone. Alright so the blade is cleaned up and sharpened again on the edge. And now it's time for the fun part which is assembling. So here we are. Seems to work good but let's give it a test. So that was pretty cool. I did not expect it would still work that well. So now the team can use it for their next cleaning job to cut bushes. Which is actually right now. So as you can see Dave and the digger already did their job here on this side. Now it's time for the general help team to work on that side. It's a mess, it's full of thin mimosas. Very dry, dead. So we're mainly going to remove the thinner ones. The thick ones we leave to leave some shade and also to hold a bit the soil. Also we have to avoid this from happening. While we're working here. One of the priorities is to make sure that all of the debris doesn't go back into the pond. And that we also don't go into the pond. Ah, we also don't go into the pond. Barbed wire, our lovely friend. Install on the chainsaw. Hopefully nothing major. But it's pretty annoying. Annoying for the people, annoying for the machines. Okay, one less. Now this whole area, this little path is clear. So we have easier access to the pond. Not only it looks much nicer and it's easier to walk. It also prevents most of the soil from going into the water. You can see, this looks way better. Much more light. We have a lovely path to access the whole area. All of the stuff that we cut down is now on the floor. Looks a bit messy, but it's the best for the soil. Classic general help staff. Now it's time for Dave to keep the rest of the project. Good luck Dave. So next I'm going to dig an overflow. So if in the winter the water level goes up. To make sure it doesn't go over all the edges. But it has a specific place where it can flow out. So I'm going to dig it right there. I'm just going to dig a gutter that it can go out. I'm not going to put in a pipe yet and cover it back up. Because I'm not sure yet what would be the appropriate height to put it in. So I'm just going to dig it for now. And then observe this winter to see how this whole thing behaves. See what you're thinking. That could have been done with a digger a bit faster. I agree. Alright, so the overflow is ready. Now waiting for rain to come in the winter. And see how it's going to behave. Kind of curious how high the water level would get. And finally we leveled the soil a bit more. And added a seed next to it. That would provide a ground cover. To make sure it doesn't really erode. And everything sticks together better. Which should be happening when it all starts growing later on. Alright, so it's ready. Let me show you the end. So here we have the lake, swamp, lagoon. Let me know how I should call this. But we cleared it up. And now it's much deeper. So we can hold much more water. Which is cool. So there's already some water in here. Which is coming back, which is cool. But the main bulk amount of water would come in winter. When it would start to rain. And hopefully fill up this thing. So here we have the overflow. And the water level is there. So we still need to fill up all the way here. And when the water level reaches here. It flows out there. To make sure it doesn't break all the other walls. So at the moment the soil is still very crumbly. So we added this layer on top. With the seed mix. To provide a ground cover. To protect the soil. But also hopefully compact it. And compress it a bit together. So it all stays properly in shape. We cleaned up this side. So now we can access it properly. But this whole wall is still the same as before. And we're not sure what we're going to do with it yet. The plan is first to just see how this all behaves. What we just did now. In the winter after it fills up. And maybe next year in the summer. When it's dry again. We can see if we want to rework this wall. But for now at least we can access it properly. And observe how it behaves. So that was it for now. Pretty big difference before and after. Still looks a bit bare and raw. But it will get better as the top cover grows. And new trees are planted. The main upside is that we now have a bigger water reservoir. Close to base camp. Which will be good in the dry summer months. So we will continue to observe and work on this place. So it would be nice when the first rain comes. To see how this hall evolves. We will make sure to post some pictures on Patreon in the winter. On how the process is evolving. So if you want to see that make sure to support us. So you can see them. Or not and you just see it in a video update at some point. Anyway that was it. Thank you for watching and see you next time. In the next update we will work on another water area on the land. Doing some maintenance around the waterfall. And we will also continue building our house on the pig trailer. Thanks for watching and see you in the next update. Bye.