Tree tipping, land clearing and drainage
- Thread starter mboulais
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EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
Marcel,
I've enjoyed this thread and the work your putting into draining your land. Nice to see the backhoe in operation and all the water in the trench. It's gonna take allot of dirt removal to make it nice and have it deep enough to keep the water flowing, but that's just what it takes.
Thanks,
Eddie
I've enjoyed this thread and the work your putting into draining your land. Nice to see the backhoe in operation and all the water in the trench. It's gonna take allot of dirt removal to make it nice and have it deep enough to keep the water flowing, but that's just what it takes.
Thanks,
Eddie
This first photo is the ditch in the woods. It is nearly 3' deep in the section in the photo. The second pic is the trail head on the lawn. Two four inch pvc pipes have now been buried to allow water flow from the lawn to the new ditch and the ground has dried enough to use the trail. The third picture is inside the woods near the trail head. The spoils from digging the ditch are being spread over logs from straightening the trial to build a solid road for the tractor. The fourth picture is a cultivator I borrowed this weekend. The fifth picture is a before pic of the spot chosen on the lawn for the garden, we'll call this plan "b". I was going to plant everything in the woods, but I am not going to have the area cleared in time, let alone worked up. The last pic is the "garden" after about 6 to 7 passes with the cultivators.
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Marcel, excellent work. Your persistence through the many "issues" is inspiring me to tackle some stuff on my 35 acres that I have been avoiding. On a side note, I share many of your views on ones self determination. Be careful and keep up the photo documentation of your progress.
Thank you for your kind words guys. Pictures will keep coming. I put the backhoe back on this weekend. I wanted to give it a field trial after putting the pin back in and I am still trying to dry up the the 200' x 200' wet area just inside the woods along the south edge of the property. It will drain out to the lawn, then back into the woods on the north side of the other trail into the woods The ditch between the camera and me was first cut with the front end loader a few weeks back to get things floowing, but needs to be cut deeper. We got some rain this weekend and the ditch digging is defintely helping keep things drier. We also got started planting. Without plowing first, all the cultivators accomplished was tearing off most of the sod. I am planting as is though. I have planted in hard ground like this before, but I try to avoid it. So far we have 40 hills of pumpkins, 2 30' rows of corn, and 2 30' rows on sunflowers planted. It's going to be a small garden this year, I am about half done planting.
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I originally used two 4" septic pipes for my culvert, but found a ten foot road too narrow for a 6' wide tractor, go figure. I also had not built stone walls at the entrance and exit of the culvert so I bought two more pipes and extended both ends. I now have a 14' wide crossing. Things are actually quite dry right now. I finished the ditch and we started a dry spell. I moved down to this area last year around this time and I think it rained all but ten days of the first 6 months I was here, I am still waiting for the sky to open up and repeat last year's performance.
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This is a second area that is being cleared. I let a friend cut his firewood in this area. I asked that he clear cut as he went. He has all 10 cord down that he needs for the year and has cleared less than a quarter the area I am planning to clear there. The forest grew up in old pasture and you can still clearly see where the hedge rows are when you walk through it even though the canopy of the forest is even at about 30 ft.
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I had backhoe issues again too. It began running slow and a little jerky. I changed the filter again (I put a new one on right after getting it here) It was still not working well and I needed it off for another project, so I left it Saturday to work on other stuff. Tonight I looked it over and found the inlet hose on the pump so loose I could spin it out with two fingers. The inlet hose will need to be changed too, It had a kink and it is getting worse. I removed the pressure relief valve, but did not see any problems. After I put it back in I shifted all the valves and got a lot of air out of the system.
We got some heavy rain in the last 24 hrs. I went out to check the ditch. The water is up about 6". There was also a couple inches at the north end of the garden near the ditch. I quickly dug a shallow trench by hand to drain that into the ditch. Even though there is some standing water in spots on the lawn and in some ruts, I think it would have been much worse out there without the ditch. I went back in the woods and good see that there had been enough water to flow the whole length of the ditch. The ditch in the woods is shallower than out on the lawn to act as an overflow and keep a little water in the ditch at the lawn, which I would like to open up into a small pond.
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EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
Sorry if you already mentioned this, but what are you doing with the dirt from your ditch?
I have a ditch that I've dug to divert water from my field that catches all sorts of water, to my lake. It's still not right, but it's working. I use the dirt from the ditch to fill in the low areas that hold standing water and create small embankments to divert more water to the lake.
On your backhoe, how smooth are the hydraulic lines? Do they make any sudden turns? Kinks? Do the lines thread on really easy and line up nicely?
Eddie
I have a ditch that I've dug to divert water from my field that catches all sorts of water, to my lake. It's still not right, but it's working. I use the dirt from the ditch to fill in the low areas that hold standing water and create small embankments to divert more water to the lake.
On your backhoe, how smooth are the hydraulic lines? Do they make any sudden turns? Kinks? Do the lines thread on really easy and line up nicely?
Eddie