Reclaiming a long-lost field

[cat fever]

You'll be mowing hay before ya know it. For less than 1 years work it looks great.
What you need is a family reunion there, and everyone is required to take a truck load of rocks back home.

 

[dave1949]

Dave, found your place on google maps........ Is that a swampy area to the north of the clearing?

This what the beaver bog looks like today. They are always hard at work living up to "busy as a beaver."

This is the larger pond that the small stream enters after it comes down from that knobby hill in the background. The lodge center-left is in use now.


The straight line of mud and sticks in the center is a dam between the ponds.


This pond is a couple steps lower than the one in the pic above, on the other side of that dam. The weed covered lodge center-right was abandoned all last year and this pond was almost empty. Maybe some offspring are moving into that area. From the size of the drowned trees, you can tell the far edge of that pond area hadn't been flooded for 30-40 years.


The wall of sticks in the center is the dam across the stream bed leaving the lower pond. The water in the foreground is their latest expansion area which I hadn't seen until today.

 

[dave1949]

You'll be mowing hay before ya know it. For less than 1 years work it looks great.
What you need is a family reunion there, and everyone is required to take a truck load of rocks back home.

Thanks. I do have rocks. About 1/3 of the field area is not suitable for ground engaging tools like plows, field cultivators, and spring tooth harrows. The rocks would just bust up the implements when they hook a rock. I'll be sticking with implements that can float up and roll over rocks. That's my theory at this point. We'll see.

My thought so far is to mow it close in late fall, then work it with a spike tooth harrow in spring as soon as the ground is dry enough to not be muddy but still soft on top. That might scratch it up enough to make seed starting a little easier if I can keep the dead grass from bunching up in the drag. Some areas would be okay to cut up with a disk harrow, then drag.

 

[wmonroe]

You're making very good progress with the field. I also love the view you have with the mountains in the back ground.

 

[dave1949]

You're making very good progress with the field. I also love the view you have with the mountains in the back ground.

Thanks. The hills do make a nice back drop. Most of the nasty weather comes over those hills. I got drenched and lightly hailed on last week in the field because I misread the sky there.

 

[dave1949]

I have finished picking up stuff on the surface or shallow enough to root out with the FEL bucket. Next step is to dig up rocks with the backhoe that are sticking up higher than I would like for mowing. This 1/2 acre area in the pics below is chock full of rocks. The guy who did the clearing tried to get a level with the dozer where the rocks were low enough but after settling quite a few were too high. The rest of the field is just a few rocks here and there to dig up--thank goodness. I'm getting tired of rocks.

The white patch in the center of this pic is a rock that is probably too big for my tractor to handle. I have some more of those here and there around the field.





A grapple would be a nice tool to have for moving most of these rocks. Anything I can get into the bucket will go to the junk pile, the rest will get pushed into the line of rocks on the edge of the field.

 

[Garandman]

I use pallet forks. Don't really have enough FEL capacity for a grapple so this is the next best thing.

 

[dave1949]

I don't have the FEL capacity to lift the larger rocks either and the weight of a grapple built to handle rocks without self-destructing would make it even less. My loader doesn't have SSQA which limits the useful options a bit. If it did, it would have been worth it to buy a sturdy skeleton/rock bucket for this project.

This is my last heavy duty project--at least that is what I tell Sharon. :laughing: But, I think it is really so I keep making do with what I've got.

 

[PAGUY]

All those rocks would make a nice rock wall at the edge of the field.

It would be your monument for eternity for others to admire. :thumbsup:

 

[dave1949]

All those rocks would make a nice rock wall at the edge of the field.

It would be your monument for eternity for others to admire. :thumbsup:

Eternity can take care of itself. :laughing: I already have enough eternal rock walls to keep the brush trimmed along, and I pity the folks who needed to build them. They would spin in their graves if they could see what the log skidders did to their handiwork 100 years later.

Seriously, old rock walls are nice but without pasture animals like sheep or goats to keep them cleaned up, they are a maintenance item and an obstacle given the scale of modern forestry equipment.