Creating my Pasture

[3RRL]

Wow Eddie, another big project for you.
Man, that is a lot of dirt to move around. If I read correctly, you'll have moved nearly a thousand yards, right? It's a good thing you have the right equipment to tackle such a job. It would take me months to do that ... I take that back ... it would take me months to "think" about doing. lol
Jim is right, your dirt is very red indeed. I have some of each color depending where I dig. I'll be keeping an eye on your new pasture. I'm certain it'll turn out as good as your tremendous lake project. It will give us all hours of fun reading and viewing those great photos.

 

[hobie]

Eddie, I love the vistas/views you create on your place. All the more remarkable considering what you started with! I am always battling green/bull briar, poison ivy, bittersweet, and "wild" (English) roses on our little 3+ acres so I have some sense of the work involved. It is the scale of your projects that blows me away. You are an artist, and I am a real fan of your work. A friend had all four coil springs go on his car this winter. That type of work isn't as much fun. Best of luck with the truck. Brian

 

[Wis Bang]

Today, I hauled 9 loads of dirt when I heard a loud snap. I dumped my load and inspected the dump truck. Something wasn't right, but it took me a minute to realize the rear axle was at an angle. I broke my drivers side, rear leaf spring. I took it off and will go find another this week.

Eddie

Check around for a spring shop that will replace the broken leaf and center bolt. Sometimes putting a new spring on one side will cause the other one to break. Keep the U bolts tight and check them on a regular basis.

A good spring shop will re-temper/re-arch the whole spring pack cheaper than buying a new spring. Loose U bolts let the spring pack twist and move making it easier to break a leaf.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you for your kind comments.

I went to a store called WC Supply for the leaf spring. I figured they'd have to make it and sort of expected it to take a few days. They had one on the shelf!!!! The spring, center bolt and a spray can of lubricating oil for my squeaky doors came to $61 with tax. That was a surprise.

While installing it, I looked at the one on the other side and think it looks new. The one that broke was really rusty looking, but that one looks like it's still painted black like the new one. Until it breaks, I'll leave it alone.

I've also been struggling with my brakes. I don't have any. The hydraulic fluid is disappearing in about three to four hours. I can't find a leak anywhere, but when I checked the vacuum line, fluid drained out of it. I removed the vacuum booster that's under the drivers seat, and attached to the frame. A new one cost me $240 without any change or improvement. I'm running out of time t get this done and don't really need brakes. They would be nice, but I've adjusted for what I'm doing. I still hit the brake pedal a few times during the day, but mostly out of habit.

Today, I was moving dirt and having a good ole time of it, when I ran out of gas. My gauge said that I had over a quarter tank, but with this truck, anything is possible. I put 20 gallons into it and was able to fire it right up. Then after dumping a load of dirt, it died on me again. I thought it might be the fuel filter, but after removing it and trying to drive with out it, there was no improvement. I also checked the electric fuel pump. It had gasoline coming out of it, so that looked fine. Of course, the truck was dying and not starting, so I had something wrong. I went through it again and realized that I put the fuel filter back on backwards. I changed it, but that didn't help. I checked the carburetor, and it was dry. No fuel. I went back to the fuel pump and turned it on again. This time, I put my thumb over it to see how much pressure I had. There wasn't any. Then I held it up so that the fuel would have to pump straight up. Nothing came out.

It's an AC Delco universal type electric fuel pump that's only two years old. With the hours on the truck, it should still be brand new. I went to Auto Zone and bought another fuel pump. I put it in and couldn't get the engine to start. That was really frustrating, but sure enough, after checking, I found that I put it in backwards. Twice in one day!!!!! After installing it properly, the engine fired right up and I had allot more power then I was used to.

I guess that the fuel pump has been going for some time now. The amount of new power is significant.

While buying the fuel pump, I went to Lowes and bought a 12 inch culvert. I needed to do that anyway, so that sort of worked out for me. The drainage ditch of the pasture is always wet and very soft. I want to be able to get across it, so I figured a culvert would work good.

I'm not done with the other side of it, but the front of the culvert is ready for the weather if it rains. We're at 50% for rain, so anything is possible. I quit at 9:45 tonight. I sure do like these longer days!!!!!!!!1

Eddie

 

[MODiesel]

Random thoughts....

1. Between the dozer, loader and dump truck, I hope your fuel man sends you a heck of a Christmas present, especially considering that this ain't "commercial" work.

2. I don't know how you explain above said fuel bill to your better half.

3. I always hated overloading my '85 F800. It had the darn tendency to die out with a heavy load, on a grade, while dumping, etc. I swear it was trying to get me for making it work that hard. And all of the parts were major $$. You're a better man than me Charlie Brown.

4. Not sure which braking system you've got, but from what I could tell they all were pricey on these old Fords. One thing to check is the parking brake circuit. Even when mine were flaky I could pull the parking brake release as I backed up a grade to dump and those would come on regardless of the engine, vacuum or hydroboost. Of couse, depending on the grade, that wasn't always enough, but on your flat ground it may be an option.

5. I want a dozer. I know, I know....I really don't. And I realize that (plus I could never justify the upfront cost and the ongoing maintenance). But they are cool, even if they beat you up over a long day. Scratch that...on second thought, something like a Cat 953 track loader would be more versatile. Maybe I need to work on that angle a bit....

As always Eddie, thanks for the action pics. I suspect it's especially entertaining for those of us who have "been there." While we can feel you pain, there's also just something so satisfying about being able to tackle such large projects on your own.

 

[EddieWalker]

MODiesel,

Thanks, fuel is one of my biggest ongoing expenses. I would probably second that with repairs!! Steph is really good about my working on the land and what I spend on it. I was doing this before we met, so it's something she accepted a long time ago. I sometimes find it hard to justify it myself, but I'm addicted to it. If it's wet outside, I'm going crazy wanting to get something done. If it's dry outside and I'm not working on a job, it's about the only thing I think of.

The breaks are a mystery that I'm just going to put off until I'm done with removing this area of dirt. I've got it worked out to where to turn off the key to park at just the right spot so that I can load the dump bed with the backhoe. Then with a load of dirt, I just put in the clutch and it stops pretty quickly so that I can put it in reverse to back up to the piles. I just run into the piles to stop, then dump the dirt and go do it again. At first, I would hit the break pedal out of habit, but for the last week or so, I haven't even touched the break pedal.

I forgot to mention that I had to put a new starter in the dump truck before this latest round of dirt moving started. Just like the fuel pump, I think it had been going for awhile before dying on me. The new starter is so much faster and the engine fires up allot easier. It might also be the warmer weather, I don't have a choke on the carburetor.

The slope is getting closer to tying into the existing lay of the land. I'm trying really hard to make it all look natural. I also want it to be very gradual so that I can mow it and the water doesn't cause allot of erosion. The grass will help with that when it's in, but until then, I'm hopeful that the angle is gentle enough to stop the ruts like you can see in one of the pictures.

The pictures are a few days old. I'll take a few more pics today. If nothing breaks today, I might be able to finish digging and hauling dirt!!!!!!!

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I finished up the last little bit yesterday. I spent more time find tuning and grading it to look natural then I did actually hauling it, but it's done, so that's a big accomplishment. I have my soils report and now I need to find the best price for fertilizer and to start disking it all up. Today, it's raining pretty hard with allot of lightning and thunder. It's an impressive storm. I won't be able to do anything until it dries up some, but hopefully the soil will be easier to disk from the water softening the soil.

After cleaning up the pasture and taking a few pictures, I went and got Peyton to help me measure the grade where I'm spreading the dirt. The area that I'm spreading it out is where my store is going to be built for the RV Park. The store will be 60 x 120 with an 8 foot porch along the front, so I'm building a level pad that's 70 x 120. Then I'm grading for parking spaces in front of the store at an angle down to a three lane road in front of the store that will be 45 feet wide. My first set of readings is for rough grade. I use my laser level to find out how much the ground is changing and I have Peyton spray paint it on the dirt. He loves this!!! If it's down 4 inches, I tell him to spray a 4 at that point. We go around the area, I take measurements, he sprays the number. Then I get on the dozer and try to spread out the dirt to the thickness of those numbers. I'm just eyeballing it, so I'm not very accurate, but I'm close enough for roughing it in.

Then I measure the height of the soil again for my final grade. This time, I'm usually high and need to cut it down. For this, I put a minus before the number that I need to cut it down, or a zero for those areas that are correct. Then I cut down to sides to grade, sort of an L shape along two sides of the pad. When that is correct, I cut down the rest of the pad.

It was getting dark on me, and I sort of rushed it, so I'll have to clean it up quite a bit after things dry out some. I wasn't sure if it would rain today or not, but thought it was better to get the piles spread out before the storm than after they have soaked up a bunch of water. Then it's really hard to work the soil because it's just mud. Now that it's spread out, I can measure it and make changes pretty easily.

I wasn't sure how much dirt that I'd get out of the pasture, but after getting the pad built up, I'm still short at least a thousand yards for the road and parking areas. My guess is that I have 6,000 yards into this area so far. The entire area will hold my store, my swimming pool, my laundromat and meeting hall. Since it's years and years away from happening, there's no rush on the dirt work, but the more that I can get done, the faster and cheaper the build will be when I'm ready for that part of it. In the meantime, I'm going to plant grass over the area and keep it mowed. Then it should be a simple job of removing the grass and fine tuning the pad to make it ready for concrete.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

A little memory lane.

These two sets of pictures are before and present pics taken from about the same location.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I have no idea how many trees were removed, but it was in the thousands. They came down fairly quickly with the dozer, but it took a few years to clean up the mess and burn all the trees. I gave a few away, but mostly, they were just burned.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Then after the trees were gone and the burn pile cleaned up, I started working the ground. The hardest part was picking up all the branches. I built a rake for this, and it did a nice job. It also did a good job of smoothing out the soil. Then I dragged a log all around the smooth it out even more before planting grass seed.

The picture of the four trees shows where the ditch is going to go. The oak tree to the left came out because the ditch went right where it was growing. I liked that tree, but until looking at this picture, had forgotten about it. I've taken out some beautiful trees, but once gone, I never remember them, or miss them.

TXDon is on the dozer and is starting to dig the ditch. This was a few years ago, so you get an idea of how slow I am.

Overall, it's been allot more work then I thought it would be. Of course, the original plan has changed quite a bit too. At one time, I was going to just build on what I had and live with the results. I didn't have a lake then, and I didn't think it was possible to build one. Once I got over that mental block and figured out where and how to build a fishing lake, I just took it from there in modifying the pasture to catch and carry water to Lake Marabou. The entire area is about ten acres, maybe 11. There is still one area of about an acre that I want to fine tune before it's all done, but that's not too big of a job and sort of low on my priority list. Now that the bulk of it is done, I'm very pleased with how it's turned out. My goal was to make it look natural, so that when anybody looks at it, they won't think twice about it. They will automatically assume that it is just how Mother Nature created it, if they think about it at all. A year from now, when the grass is in, nobody who is reading this will be able to tell where it started, and what I did.

Of course, it's hard for me to remember what it was like when I started. Steph and I go for walks around the pasture and I will tell her that this is where we rode the dozer together and pushed over some trees. She doesn't recognize it at all. My transformation has been so complete that I don't recognize it either, I just know where these things happened, and what was there, but otherwise, it's like it's been this way forever.

Eddie