Reclaiming a long-lost field

[Ken45101]

Wow! Quite a project! You have done very well. That pile of timber waiting to load is impressive.

Well if you've dug stumps for the road, you obviously have some experience with your trees. I have found them difficult to get out of the ground here but then I've been digging bigger ones. The last stump I dug out, I broke the mini excavator bucket!

In my experience, it seems that a dozer is most effective in removing stumps but that's when there is 4-5' of the tree left that they can lever against. I would not want to try digging out all the stumps that you have! Good luck!

 

[dave1949]

Wow! Quite a project! You have done very well. That pile of timber waiting to load is impressive.

Well if you've dug stumps for the road, you obviously have some experience with your trees. I have found them difficult to get out of the ground here but then I've been digging bigger ones. The last stump I dug out, I broke the mini excavator bucket!

In my experience, it seems that a dozer is most effective in removing stumps but that's when there is 4-5' of the tree left that they can lever against. I would not want to try digging out all the stumps that you have! Good luck!

Thanks for wishing me good luck.

Yeah, stumps are tough to dig. It doesn't take much of a tree to be too big for my tractor. Even the trees that are only about 14"-16" in diameter at the base can have root balls so heavy with dirt that my hoe won't lift them out of the hole. Once I get all the roots cut, I spin them and roll them, turn them upside down so I can scrape some dirt off the roots. That lightens them up enough to lift usually.

That's fine for a few stumps but it's a waste of time and machine for more than that. I need something bigger or hire someone. Excavators are the tool most people use around here for stumps, even those need to be in the 30 ton range to be really productive. A decent excavator with a thumb could clear a 50' wide swath and leave a stacked windrow of stumps behind ready to burn once they dried.

I'll probably get an estimate from the guy I have hired to do so excavator work in the past and compare that to the price of a decent used construction TLB. Still going to need to hire a bulldozer eventually to root and rock rake, and finish grade if I want more than just rough pasture.

 

[MacLawn]

What about those grinder thingamajigs you see over in the Land Clearing section of forum? Those things seem to grind about everything! I guess that would be expensive though. Keep us posted on this. Very helpful I think to some of us here. I need about 5-7 acres taken from trees/brush down to field. I'm tired of the woods now, I want some more grass to cut!

 

[Ken45101]

What about those grinder thingamajigs you see over in the Land Clearing section of forum? Those things seem to grind about everything! I guess that would be expensive though. Keep us posted on this. Very helpful I think to some of us here. I need about 5-7 acres taken from trees/brush down to field. I'm tired of the woods now, I want some more grass to cut!

A Bobcat with their forestry mulcher is well over $100K now. Last I checked, you could rent one for $2k/week. The big ones? I have no idea of their cost. If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

 

[dave1949]

What about those grinder thingamajigs you see over in the Land Clearing section of forum? Those things seem to grind about everything! I guess that would be expensive though. Keep us posted on this. Very helpful I think to some of us here. I need about 5-7 acres taken from trees/brush down to field. I'm tired of the woods now, I want some more grass to cut!

One of these tub grinders would be nice:
Morbark 1600 Tub Grinder - YouTube

They must be built to deal with the occasional rock? It's not uncommon for a stump to have a rock among its roots here. Sometimes they shake out, others are encapsulated by the roots.

I'll get some pics tomorrow of the chipper in action. It's a Morbark model 23.

 

[GLyford]

Given a choice between goats and sheep, my money would be on sheep...as a friend of mine who keeps both says, goats are always plotting escape and are good at it. Fencing in 15 acres sounds like enough of a project without upping the spec to "goat proof" fencing.

 

[dave1949]

Here are some pics of the chipper in-use. The trees are picked up with the crane and pushed into the chipper's powered feed drums. The top drum rides up on the logs as they are pulled in. The chips are blown into a 53' van trailer for transport.

The last two pics are about typical for what needs to be cleared. Some areas are a bit thicker, some less.

The old rock walls are going to be fun. A few wall sections are still intact and worth keeping as historical remnants of the poor devils who settled this area back in the mid-1800's, but most of them have been skidded over or knocked down over the years to the point where they are just lumps of rocks. I think I would prefer to remove most of them. They are just extra work to keep the trees trimmed next to them and they eat up usable space, plus chopping the area up into odd shaped sections. Goats would probably enjoy them.

Anyone need some free rocks?? You load and haul. :laughing:

 

[dave1949]

Given a choice between goats and sheep, my money would be on sheep...as a friend of mine who keeps both says, goats are always plotting escape and are good at it. Fencing in 15 acres sounds like enough of a project without upping the spec to "goat proof" fencing.

I think if I had to choose now, it would be sheep. People seem to be having good results around here with a Katahdin-Dorper cross. They are hair sheep, so the problem of shearing and what to do with the fleece can be skipped. They are supposed to be fairly parasite resistant, weather hardy, not picky eaters, and easy lamb-ers too. The Katahdin breed was developed here in Maine years ago as a locally adapted sheep.

 

[Ken45101]

Anyone need some free rocks?? You load and haul.

They grow naturally here every winter. Thanks for the offer.

LOL, there was an ad in Craiglist, someone selling creek rock for $1 each just downstream from us! If that worked, we would be millionaires!

 

[dave1949]

Getting back to some activity on this project. We finally joined civilization on Google Earth with a new, crisp image taken last September after the trees were all done.

This a view of the clearing:


A closer view:



I dithered all winter about buying or hiring equipment. Asked a few questions in the Construction Equipment Forum here on TBN. Shopped around various equipment looking up specs etc. In the end I decided it is better to hire the job out. Work should begin sometime this month. The guy doing it has done other work for me and I've always been pleased with the results. He has a large Volvo tracked excavator, a Deere dozer with a root rake blade, a front-end loader and dump truck. His son works with him the business too. His estimate is $20K +/-. Probably the better part of three weeks work. That's about what I expected. The forester I consulted with told me she paid $2K/acre for a field clearing. I think the main clearing is about 12 acres and there are another ~2 acres nearer the house and along the access road.

He suggested a way to deal with the stumps. There are two areas with steep slopes that he says would make good stump "bunkers." He will take what dirt he can out first, then pack the slope with stumps. Finish by covering the rebuilt, smoothed-out slope with a layer of dirt. That sounds good to me and a lot more fun than burning them and working around piles of stumps while waiting for them dry enough to burn well. I know eventually there will be some uneven subsidence, but those slopes are not usable now as they are anyways. I'll post some pics of those and as the work progresses.