The Beach project.......

[nasdaqsam]

Greetings to all,

For those of you that have been following the progression of the projects on my Kubota BX23. The thumb, the BH mounted landscape rake and the grapple project. I thought it would be nice to show you all what I built these items for. It's not the only use there going to get but it is the main reason for building them.

You see, I have a beach.....well could be beach. I own two adjacent properties. One of the beachs is in real good shape but needs constant maintenance. Picking yearly rocks and raking. The other, well....it's been neglected pretty bad by the previous owners. I'm going to attach some before pictures. The beach area is full of large/small stones and over grown grass. So not really much of a beach.

The biggest issue I faced when looking into working on the beach (D.E.C. not included) was the fact that there is just no base to work on and a very limited amount of room to work. It's clay so you can not just drive on it to much or you will sink. With BX23 in hand I had to come up with some ways of making it work for me in cleaning up this beach. Thats were tractorbynet came in, I have received many great ideas and much assistance with all of these additions to the BX. Thanks to everyone.

What I was facing, First the large rocks have to be removed. The thumb. Works great. Just back up slowly and pick the rocks little by little and move up land. With the reach of the BH I am able to get fairly close to them, enough so that I can move them up to a more stable spot. From there I have to get them off the beach and onto a dump trailer. You would think the FEL alone would do the job but remember I can't move around to much so the Grapple was born. Now I can just drive up to a rock and pick it from it's resting place and dump it into the trailer for hauling away. So now I have a beach picked free of large stones. But what about the 6" and under stuff? OK, a landscape rake should do the trick but I can not pull one on the beach, I will just sink out of site, not to mention the lack of room to work and turn around. So the BH mounted rake was born. Ahhh the rake. Tried it for the first time yesterday. Wow what a job it does. Of the three projects this one was far and away the most usefull one. I "need" the thumb and the grapple but I can not live with out the rake. From raking up the thousands of small rocks to leveling the beach to leveling the new pea stone, it is a must have.

Attached is a before picture. I am working on it slowly and will try to post some pics as I go. Hopefully these will give some idea of what I am facing. To give you a better idea of what the base is like. I pulled a case mid-sized BH on the beach several months ago. I made it a few feet before I buried it. And I mean buried it. The Kubota is just light enough to stay on top but barely.

 

[nasdaqsam]

Another before shot. It's hard to tell from the pictures but as the water receeds there are more and more rocks and many of the little rocks you see are really just the tops of very large rocks that must be removed.

 

[nasdaqsam]

Another before.

 

[nasdaqsam]

This is a picture of the beach I cleaned by hand over the past 3 years. It's not done but is getting better every year. I have found you have to do some work then let the lake do it's thing then do some more and so on. The lake has a way of fixing things up if your patient.

 

[nasdaqsam]

Another after from a little farther away. The large rock you see is now gone. I had to pull it inch by inch with the BH along the beach and up onto hard pack. It took three hours.

 

[nasdaqsam]

This is a shot of some of the small stones I have to remove. This area had been cleaned by hand last year. I do not have a picture today of when the water receeds but if you can picture a complete blank of these size rocks covering an area. This is what I am dealing with.

 

[nasdaqsam]

A quick shot of the neighbors property. You can see where I am getting the stones from. The ice picks them up and deposits them onto my beach. Also they all have sea walls. I have a small one but can still enjoy the beach. I would like to keep as much beach as possible. Not much on seawalls if I don't have to have one.

 

[nasdaqsam]

As you can see it is in rough shape for a beach and the D.E.C. will only allow me to bring in pea stone. No sand allowed. However, the lake bed itself once you get past this band of stones is pure sand for hundreds of feet. It is a very shallow bay with a northern exposure. On this lake the wind blows from the south so I have a calm bay most of the time.

 

[Cityboyfarmer]

Awesome project! What's the name of the lake and where is is it located in NY?

 

[AntrimMan]

I feel for you with the DEP being involved.
They lowered the lake 5' here to work on the dam.
It was supposed to take two years. That was the plan.
It took me a long time to get a permit from them so I could build a wall. In the end the dam repairs went way too fast and they brought the water back up after about 3 months. I cut a ramp, had my machine down in there, buried the old blocks and dug the trench and no one wanted the form and pour job. Money wouldn't make them move. I am soooo unhappy. I am worse off now than I was. The water was supposed to go back down again this year but with the dam finished it is not going to happen. Well the water is back up as you can see. I am going to pour my own blocks, keep them around 650# so the backhoe can handle them and set them like a big brick wall. It is way more complicated now with the water up.
I doubt any blocks will be placed this year. There is a lot more to this story but that will be covered in another project.
Sorry I didn't mean to hijack your thread. You just give me such inspiration.
Thanks for the pics and your project looks like a good match for the BX. Keep us informed.

All the best, and don't anger the DEP, they know how to hurt you without even trying.

Martin