Another day, another swale

[mlmartin]

I converted a small (1 foot deep, two feet wide) meandering drainage ditch into a straight, 200 foot long, 1 1/2 foot deep, 12 foot wide swale. It took about five hours of tractor time, mostly with the box blade. Perhaps the USGS maps will reflect the change after the next survey. The old ditch is on the current map/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I put the scarifiers full down and made multiple passes over the length of the old ditch for the width of the new swale to break up the sod and loosen the material. I followed that with one pass across the width with the scarifiers full down. Then I pulled the scarifiers up to minimum penetration and started spreading the clods of sod around to flatten the work area.

I got some good practice using the back blade to push material out of the bottom of the new swale. My JD 870 with turf tires will never be mistaken for a bulldozer, but it got the job done.

Once the swale was cut, I spread the excess material around that quarter of the pasture, cutting the hummocks that had irritated my rotary cutter and filling around them. Two passes of the chain harrow smoothed it out and got rid of the minor ridges left by the box blade. It also broke up most of the remaining clods.

I managed to get all of that box blade work done without touching the top link. Am I doing something wrong/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif?

It's a pasture and I didn't want to kill all the grass, so it's still pretty uneven.The rotary cutter should have no problems in that section from now on. I'll also be able to use the snowblower to clear the swale out. I don't want to think of the number of times I shoveled the snow out of that old ditch so the horses could have a dry place to stand after a heavy winter rain.

Today, I get to pick the rocks up. I haven't figured out how to get the tractor to do that, yet/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Matthew

 

[RobS]

You've been busy Matthew! Sounds like a fun project. I've noticed also that the toplink isn't too critical for rough work. Where it really needs some attention is in fine finishing and grading. I still need some practice there. What size box blade? Light model or heavyweight? Keep it up /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[mlmartin]

I did some rough through finish grading of my new paddock without adjusting the top link. The final grade was a thick layer of stone dust. It came out like glass, not that it stays like that with the horses using it/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I have a 5 1/2 foot, 500 pound box blade. It says "heavy duty" on the side, but I consider it to be medium duty. Once I've finished my lawn (another swale and renovation) and garden (so far it's only bush hogged), the blade will only be used for maintenance, not construction, so I didn't see the need to spend top dollar.

Matthew