Dozer guy question

[john_bud]

Hi,

I am getting some land cleared for wildlife food plots. Has 10+ year old hard maple, ash and oak stumps and now trees in the 1-6" range. Any larger trees 10" on up will be passed. A guy with a JD 700 has bid on it at 100/hour. Seems like a good deal to me. Sound good to you?

Also, on fairly level ground as described with the old stumps plus rocks, how much ground would you expect him to be able to push off per hour? Obviously, not exact, but round about how much?

Last, what can I do as the wallet man to make his job go faster so he can clear more area per day? More brush piles? Rows of brush and not piles? Drag the rough ground with a 30 hp tractor while he clears?

Thanks!
jb

 

[Robert_in_NY]

What you can do to make his job easier is to tell him what you want and ask him if you can do anything to help. Generally, if you stay out of the way it is a lot easier on the operators. Just talk to him and see what he thinks is best.

 

[chh]

I would say $100 an hour is a good price. I would also recommend you stay clear of the area while he is working. Let him know what you want done and let him do it. That said, smoothing the area can take as much time as the original clearing work. If you would rather do most of that yourself, work an area after he is done and well clear of the area. I cleared about 10 acres of brush and small trees on my sisters place a couple of years ago in 2 days. I just backfilled some of the larger holes as I was going and she used a landscape rake to smooth and fill areas I cleared the first day while I was working the second day since we could stay far enough apart that I would not have to keep watching out for her.
The lay of the land and what you want for a finished product will determine what you need on piling the brush. I have seen jobs where a person just wanted clearings and did not want to burn the piles where the dozer just pushed from one side and piled brush in a row on the other. If you want fewer piles(larger piles) it seems to me to take a bit longer than pushing small piles close, due to the fact that there is more pushing of loads for longer distances. The downside is that will leave more cleanup for you after the piles are burned(if you burn them).
Good luck

 

[machmeter62]

JB: If you have that (Ford backhoe(?) rebuilt now, I would dig around the stumps busting as many roots as possible, and the same with all the trees you plan to take down; but maybe you already planned on doing this anyhow? If you have water available soaking the roots would also speed the removal?

 

[john_bud]

I was using the hoe to make a deer drinking puddle for the past 2 days. Problem is that the land has 2-6" diameter trees on a 10-20" spacing plus old stumps and rocks. The reason it isn't cleared is the stumps and rocks. Can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. It's also real frustrating to back into a tree then slam into a stump. Try to go forward and a tree branch that you backed over pokes the bottom of the tractor and disconnect linkages, 3ph pins and does other naughty things. Then hitting granite and beating the blades to death. Yuck. I had enough of that song and dance and will spend the $$$ to get much more area done faster (I hope!).

By the way, moving the lowland black dirt with a 5x10 trailer is doable with one of the load handlers that crank a sheet and pull the load. I was a skeptic, but it works faster than picking up the front of the trailer with a FEL. Pretty slick.

 

[john_bud]

Well, the dozer guy came and went all to fast! He spent about 5 hours on the trail in trying to get it in better shape. Some of the muck holes are still mucky and some are more mucky with the fresh dirt. He was hamstrung somewhat as the only soil to move was not good fill. Getting the road bed higher will help, once it dries out and firms up. He spent abut 15 hours on the land. 20 hours total and 1 hour transport fee.

Here's some pictures of the job. I figure that he did about 2.75 acres on the large field and about .5 to .6 on a small one that goes around the back side of the large and then about .6 to .7 acre on one that goes to an oak area. He also did about an acre of road work. On the last couple pictues, I'm about 6'1 or 6'2 depending if I stand up tall or not and am about 210 to 220# depending on what's for supper. That little cub was scared out when I was flagging that area (alone) after the first day's work. He was leaving tracks in my tracks on the 2nd day's work. I didn't seed until the next week. Put out some feed to "prime" the camera. Should be nice. Have out 5 bu of cerial rye and 50# of red clover. After a week, the seeds were all germinating. We've had some nice weather for that. Moist and warm (for us). You can see the smoothing tool I made. It worked pretty good. It also knocked up a lot of rocks. Have about 20 hours in picking up rocks.

 

[AKfish]

Nice pictures, John. Pretty fall colors. That's some pretty thick vegetation, too. And a very "rotund" cub... hard to tell from just one picture, but looks about 300lbs. I'd like to see his "Mom & Dad"!!!

AKfish

 

[john_bud]

Weight from a picture is hard to tell, but a visibly smaller one was killed by a buddy and was 353# dressed weight. 5-6 years ago there was one that was 720+ killed about 5 miles from there. Dogs ran it from dawn to dusk, it was too big to climb a tree! There are so many acorns this year everything is fat.

Was hunting last week and saw 3 deer and 5 bears. The one that was off the trail chuffing and snapping it's teeth at me as I was walking back to camp was the one I really really didn't want to see (and didn't -- thankfully!). That bow & arrow doesn't feel quite so omnipotent in the dark with a grumpy bear out there somewhere.... I may just start packing something "louder" in the backpack to keep my hand cold on the way in and out from now on...

I have a camera on the field that should be triggered every day by critters and that should show the green up progressing. Hopefully, the weather will keep on being nice enough to get more growth this late in the season!

jb

 

[RobJ]

John,

Did that guy with the dozer have a root rake? Looks like a lot of dirt piles up. Also in one of the last pics, the road has dirt piled up on the sides whick might hold water. That's when the operator will tilt the blade and move dirt into the middle of the road, one pass up on the right, one pass down on the left, then a pass or 2 in the middle and you have an elevated road with a nice crown.

I can't do it that easy, but a couple guys at the weekend place can. Saves a lot of run time($$) if they know what they are doing.

Rob

 

[john_bud]

Rob,

Nope. No root rake. Just me picking up sticks, roots, rocks and stuff. (oh, my aching back...). Yeah, the dirt is pretty sticky and stays in clumps on the root balls. I know he took more top soil than necessary, but I told him to focus on clearing out more open area and not to be fussy about it. He could have done better, but I directed him to go as quick as he could. The piles have been seeded with clover and are already pretty good bedding area for the deer. They also break up the sight lines, so the field looks smaller like it has closer edges. I'm hoping that translates into more daytime feeding behavior. It should, as the nearest open green area is 2 miles one way, 3 miles the other and dozens in the other 2 directions.

The road stuff is pretty flat. His 12' blade was edge to edge in most areas, so he really couldn't ditch much. And there are a LOT of rocks from fist size to small car size. It was rock'n the dozer when he hit some of the bigger ones. Next year, when it's dry I'll get the backhoe up there and ditch with that. Sadly, some of the fixed areas are still sloppy with the rain we've been getting. It needs to settle and pack in, but the trespassers are running it and rutting the snickers out of it in places. Grrrr. The soil having lots of clay and little gravel is not helping as it turns to goo quick and holds water a long time.

I may buy some road fabric and have gravel layed down on it in the worst areas after it freezes. Depends on how much the stock market comes back! Us retired guys don't have all the $$$ we want. And some a lot less. Silly politicians....

jb

 

[RobJ]

Ah yeah...rocks. I think our bedrock...and rocks...are a 1000'-2000' down/

 

[AKfish]

I thought the dozer did a "bang-up" job on the root piles, actually. Didn't see big root-wads full of dirt stickin' up in the air (you can't throw a little seed on those babies... and expect 'em to look nice and green!) I was wonderin' if he buried the stumps, etc. cause the piles didn't look nearly big enough for all the ground that was cleared.

Whooee!! I got a good laugh outta that raccoon! Definitely a candidate for weight-watchers!

I just bought another roll of tyepar (sp?) for my various gravel pads and road extension projects. Every place that's on the wet side of things up here requires the matting before laying down a layer of dirt or gravel or whatever you dump into the hole ends up as a "slurry"... 35 truck-loads of gravel on my place this season. Just finished leveling out the last of 5 loads of 3/4" minus on the driveway, corrals before things get real frozen.

Yup, on that observation about the economy - gonna postpone my 32'x32' pole-barn. Sit back and watch things for another year or so and hopefully folk's will begin to calm down a bit and get back to work!

How 'bout a pic of the new green fields?

AKfish

 

[john_bud]

No, he didn't bury anything. The land was logged flat as a popcorn fart before I bought it (cheap). That was about 1996. The old stumps from that round were pretty soft and just vanished under the tracks. Most of the trees now were in the 3-8" range. The trees left standing were ALL of the ones that are 12" or better. Not many in that area! On the bright side, it did make for a faster job.

Yeah, that coon is a real porker. I have a picture in my comp somewhere that shows 3-4 coons waddling past. Everybody loves a good acorn drop!!

It's funny, I did some road bed raising a month before the dozer guy. I would just dig a hole with the FEL on the side of the road and drop 8-10 cuft of dirt into the muck pits. Then repeat all day long. I would try and drop rocks in first then dry clay then the dark top soil then repeat. running over it again and again would raise the goo, but I kept adding more dry clay. After a while, I guess it got mixed up good and the dry stuff was able to suck up the water. Anyway, those areas are still pretty firm. Hopefully, his stuff will firm up too.

I'll be sure to post up some pictures in the green after I get them! Temps dropped from 75 yesterday to a high of 60 today. That's back to normal, but the extended pure guess calls for highs about normal and lows still above freezing. Should be good for the cerial rye to grow. (I hope!)

jb

 

[john_bud]

Finally got back to the land. Naturally, it rained the night before and that day so the trails were still soft. Harder in some spots, but softer in others. Like swallow your truck leaving no sign soft.

The cerial rye and clover are popped out. Unfortunately, the critters are munching it like mad. About 2/3 to 3/4 of all the rye stems are showing signs of nibblage. I had hoped that the heavy acorn drop would draw them away, but the lack of green food is drawing them in before it can stand browse pressure.

Here are some pictures. Not good quality as it was raining... The top pictures is on the right, the middle is the middle and the bottom is left to form a panorama