Captain, there be whales here!

Well, not really whales. Not even fish, yet. But the pond has water in it-- real, pumped-and-filtered water instead of just the rainwater that collected and had to be sump-pumped out.

It's not even remotely close to being done, but it is one major step forward, and it's currently at a place that I could walk away and leave it for a week or a month or a season and not have to start all over again from the beginning.