I have been wanting to post pictures. I know there is a sort of tutorial in the open thread i think. I should look into that. My avatar is of our front pond in winter but the perspective seems to be off. It's about 3/4 acre and roughly (loosely) triangle shaped. I just love it. We sit out on that dock every evening and feed the fish.
The fen is in the back. There is a long sweep of lawn leading down to it. I spend way too much time standing at the windows (or sitting on the deck) with my binoculars watching the visitors to the fen. There is a heron that practically lives there. He is there from morning to night but the heronry is somewhere else cause in the late evening he flies away. It used to kind of bother me watching him gobble up the big goldfish, but there are so many fish in there, I just try to relax and enjoy it. My daughter just says, 'circle of life, mom, circle of life'!
If you have the room, building a pond isn't that complicated. I guess it also helps if you have the right kind of soil. We have heavy clay so if you press your heel into the soil, you have a pond! Kind of frustrating for planing things, but great if you like pond/fens/marshes.
I've often though those stock tanks would make great ponds. I wonder what it would take to make those spring pools into ponds? Are they from springs or runnoff? Do you have fish and plants in the tanks? I would love to try some kind of hydroponic thing with the ponds but I'm not sure how to go about it. Maybe floating platforms of some kind to suspend the plants. I guess they would have to be moored to the dock or shore somehow.