These pictures show the road at the point where I have filled in the first 75 feet of the washout. Though it may be hard to see, the remaining length of washout can still be seen beside the tractor tires. A nice wide road is starting to form.
About two months ago, the section between the washout and the tree line on the left side was filled with pine trees up to 3” in diameter. We removed these with a chainsaw and pruning loppers. That was before I bought the 2004 John Deere. Now that I have a tractor I don’t use the chainsaw and loppers as much. When digging along the ditch long there was a 3” pine stump about 18” high. I tried something I read on TBN. I lifted my box blade a little off the ground, backed into the stump and pushed it over. When the stump popped back up inside the box, I lowered the blade and pulled forward. The pine stump easily popped out of the ground.
I then encountered a 3” hardwood tree in the way. I figured this tree would be too large to take out with the box blade. However I at least had to try to remove it. I raised the FEL about 3 ft and drove forward and pushed the tree over. I used the FEL to push the tree down to the ground. I then drove past the tree until the top of the tree was lying on the ground pointed at the back of the box blade. Next I backed into the end of the tree with the box blade. As I backed up, the box blade lifted the end of the tree up causing it to stand back up. With the tree now standing back up, I lowered the blade fully and backed the blade into the tree. To my amazement the blade just pulled the tree out of the ground, tap root and all!
There was another similar 3” hardwood in my way. I had knocked the tree over a little bit with my FEL. I then backed into it with the blade just below ground level. The blade dug into the tree. When I tried lifting the blade a couple inches, the tree came up with the blade. I backed up a little bit more and then lifted the blade with attached tree a couple more inches. I continued alternating backing up and lifted the blade. The blade just lifted the tree right out of the ground.
I bought the box blade for the purposes of grading my road. I had no idea that I could clear brush and saplings with this handy tool! I am quickly falling in love with my box blade. I need to clear an 8 foot wide strip of 1” to 3” pine trees on each side of a 1000 foot section of road. I look forward to tackling that job with my box blade.