Reclaiming a long-lost field

[dave1949]

Looks good Dave. All your work has paid off. Soon maybe you'll be doing this.View attachment 429613

Ha! I wish. I'm making progress slowly. The rock picking is taking longer than I thought--surprise, surprise. I must have been guesstimating with a 20 year-old mind in a 66 year-old body. :laughing:

But, I can see light at the end of the rock tunnel now at least and everything gets easier after the rock picking is done. After the rocks are done my next step is to get lime on it. I will mow it down sometime in late July probably. That will give what grasses there are a chance to go to seed and grow without competition until winter. I have some other smaller areas here that I have mowed once or twice a year since 2003 that hold grass pretty well. Alfalfa could be a stretch.

 

[Garandman]

Maybe this guy can be a helpah.

 

[Larro Darro]

Little Peter can talk the talk.

 

[dave1949]

Little Peter freaks me out a bit.

 

[Garandman]

He's a pissah.

 

[MaineTom]

Now I KNOW my uncle Frank has been reincarnated! Hey Frank!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

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

 

[dave1949]

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

It is when the beavers are using it. It's a beaver bog fed by a small stream that comes down from Boardman Mtn., that knobby hill to our north. Most of it is less than 3' deep. There are actually three connected, terraced areas they have dammed off and on but they seem to keep just one pond full at any time. That beaver pond consistently shows up in all the images going back through time.

Since we bought this lot in 2003 there have been beaver in there except for a three year period 2007-2010. I think they had eaten all the easy trees. It takes a long time for the bog to dry out after they leave but eventually I could walk across most of it on dry ground.

Some pics. The brown trees are dying (drowned) because the beavers expanded their flooded area with that new section of dam.

 

[cat fever]

It is when the beavers are using it. It's a beaver bog fed by a small stream that comes down from Boardman Mtn., that knobby hill to our north. Most of it is less than 3' deep. There are actually three connected, terraced areas they have dammed off and on but they seem to keep just one pond full at any time. That beaver pond consistently shows up in all the images going back through time.

Since we bought this lot in 2003 there have been beaver in there except for a three year period 2007-2010. I think they had eaten all the easy trees. It takes a long time for the bog to dry out after they leave but eventually I could walk across most of it on dry ground.

Some pics. The brown trees are dying (drowned) because the beavers expanded their flooded area with that new section of dam.
View attachment 431740


View attachment 431741

Those pictures are great. Sure wish I had something like that around me.

 

[dave1949]

Some update pics. I declared my one-day independence from rock picking today. The air is muggy and calm anyways.

There were a couple times I wondered if I bit off more than I could chew but I'm close to being done with the hand work now. I bought a 3pt spreader last week to spread lime, fertilizer and seed.

From the field entrance.


This is the last rock picking area. It's a mess with buried boulders. Some of those small ones I can pop with the backhoe, some not.


I mowed off this section two days ago which was about 2/3 open and 1/3 trees in clumps when I started, so it has a fair amount of grass sod established already. I figured it was time to knock back the weeds and tree seedlings to give the grass an advantage. I took the pic from the top of the rocky rise that used to have a rock wall on top of it.


Looking the other direction from that rise. Much more sparse where it was all trees at the start.


This is from the backend of the field not far from the beaver bog. The white blooms are ox eye daisies.

 

[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.