TODAYS SEAT TIME

[DJFireUSA]

Attachment 286304
Finished moving the stone wall from the middle of the property over to the border. I have a good two weeks of tractor time moving the rocks and cleaning up the debris from tree removal.

I picked up a 16' utility trailer. When I have a bunch of stuff to move, like your rocks, I simply load the trailer up and then pull that load with the tractor. I presume you are doing something similar?

Down here we simply prep the area, throw out some lime as the clay doesn't have enough, then seed with both winter rye and Kentucky 31 then cover with hand tossed or blown hay. Usually see grass sprigs within 1 week.

Hope that helps... dunno what your "soil" is like up there.

[Boeing]

Gordon, Thanks for the road input. I've been fighting this same area for almost 3 years. There is a steep bank on the upper side. The road was cut perpendicular to this hill so the water runs off the wooded hill and needs to cross my road. I wanted a culvert but the road guy is adamant about not having one because I only get up there every month or so and he says that a culvert will plug up. He's tried "broad based dips"....which are working at gentler slope areas but not at this steep one. I recently filled the side ditches (water cut) and the crossing gullys with big ballast stone in the hopes that it will slow the racing water and do less washing out. The road guy wants to regrade and make the entire stretch slope down the hill, he thinks that allowing the water to cross along a 100' path would stop the problem. I don't like the idea of having a road slope towards the downhill side......if you slid sideways on ice you would go off the side of the road and down the hill....

[Boeing]

David, I'm going to have some timber removed so my mountain view will be improved. Will they cut the tree right down to the ground....or am I going to have 12" stumps sticking up? If so...can't I cut the stumps down to the ground or am I going to have to rent a grinder? Can I hollow a stump out with a chainsaw and pour lime or something to make it rot? If I can rid the stumps I want to plant clover and expand my deer field. Thanks

[RDrancher]

Gordon, Thanks for the road input. I've been fighting this same area for almost 3 years. There is a steep bank on the upper side. The road was cut perpendicular to this hill so the water runs off the wooded hill and needs to cross my road. I wanted a culvert but the road guy is adamant about not having one because I only get up there every month or so and he says that a culvert will plug up. He's tried "broad based dips"....which are working at gentler slope areas but not at this steep one. I recently filled the side ditches (water cut) and the crossing gullys with big ballast stone in the hopes that it will slow the racing water and do less washing out. The road guy wants to regrade and make the entire stretch slope down the hill, he thinks that allowing the water to cross along a 100' path would stop the problem. I don't like the idea of having a road slope towards the downhill side......if you slid sideways on ice you would go off the side of the road and down the hill....

Find another road guy and have him profile the road sloping back to the inside of the turns and set culverts. Dig it out enough to place rip rap over geotextile to slow down and disperse the flow.

[Gordon Gould]

I agree with RD. It is hard to see how you can get the water across a road that steep w/o culverts. A properly sized and installed culvert with good erosion stone drainage ditches should not plug up.

[Boeing]

RD & Gordon, thanks.....question, If we did an 18" culvert (or 2- 12"?) Does that require a ditch to feed it? Can I fill that ditch with rip-rap and the water make it's way thru? I hate big ditches to drop into.....roll hazard for tractor, stuck issue for cars....broken legs for clumsy walkers (me).
Thanks for all this very experienced advice....
Rob

[RDrancher]

No ditches are needed to collect surface water if the collection area is placed correctly. In the photo below the collection area had to be large since its channeling water off a slope and concrete driveway on a hill. I'm actually going back to this job next week to enlarge the collection area an do some other work. In this case I used woven geotextile below the rip rap rock for the entrance and also the exit area. At the entrance area I dig a shallow footing to tuck the geo into before placing the stone. This keeps the flow from lifting up the edge of the geo and pre-silting the entrance. At the culvert end the geo is run up the sides next to and over the pipe. I use landscape spikes to hold down the geo while I'm getting it in place since I'm usually working alone.


At the exit I funneled the water in a specific direction. In most cases you would want a wider dispersion area to discourage erosion, especially if the exit area is fairly steep. I use geo again (sans the footing) to keep the flow moving in the chosen direction.


Edited to add: I'm not an engineer and I can't seem to locate my flow chart, but one 18" culvert will flow slightly more than two 12" pipes. Just to give you an example that I located in my job notes, one 24" pipe will flow the equivalent of five 12" or two 18" pipes.

[Gary Fowler]

David, I'm going to have some timber removed so my mountain view will be improved. Will they cut the tree right down to the ground....or am I going to have 12" stumps sticking up? If so...can't I cut the stumps down to the ground or am I going to have to rent a grinder? Can I hollow a stump out with a chainsaw and pour lime or something to make it rot? If I can rid the stumps I want to plant clover and expand my deer field. Thanks

They just finished logging a tract of land close to me and after looking at their practice (Georgia Pacific) you will have stumps fron 6" to over a foot above ground. You would need a stump grinder or excavator to dig them out if you wanted to make it into a mowable pasture. My neighbor was just talking about some land behind her house that was logged and she said it looked like a bombing range. The owner said he couldnt afford to grub it out as it would cost more than he got for the timber. When we bought our land here, the realtor showed us some lakefront property that had been timbered and the first thing I thought was how much it would cost to uproot all those stumps which was way more than I wanted to pay plus the lake front was double priced also. It is just a shame what logging does to the land. 50 years from now those big pine stumps will likely still be there and full of pine resin so they take hundreds of years to actually rot. Hardwood stumps go away in a few years, but pine is forever if you dont grind it or dig it out.

[Gordon Gould]

David, I'm going to have some timber removed so my mountain view will be improved. Will they cut the tree right down to the ground....or am I going to have 12" stumps sticking up? If so...can't I cut the stumps down to the ground or am I going to have to rent a grinder? Can I hollow a stump out with a chainsaw and pour lime or something to make it rot? If I can rid the stumps I want to plant clover and expand my deer field. Thanks

When you contract the logger make sure he understands what you want and listen to his suggestions. Many loggers have dozer and may be your best bet to grub the stumps out. They may even push the trees over. To many people hire a logger to cut with out specifying the details they want and then complain that it was not like a park when he left. In general the logger leaves the land so the remaining or new forest will grow and thrive. Harvesting wood is not a landscape buiness.

[Boeing]

RD, thanks for the instructions and the very informative photos. I appreciate it.

Gary, if this was forest and I'm expanding a field.....what is left, mud? I can cut the stumps down to ground level myself, then plant clover throughout. Once it's ground level I could mow right over the former stumps..... My cousin took about 100 pines down from in front of his housesite to expand the view. It took about 2 years for the 6" stumps to rot/bush hog away. What am I missing?