why we have tractors

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I put the 4020 to the test today pulling up about 40 autumn olive shrubs along our driveway, it took all of about a hour an a half to up root them and pile them up.If your not familiar with autumn olive it grows to about 10-12 feet tail with long sharp thorns and the wood is as hard as steel. I know this because 5 years ago it took me 4 days to cut them down and haul them a arm full at a time to a brush pile 100 yds away, I spent a week digging thorns out of myself. Today I never got off the tractor,its things like this that justify spending our money on equipment that makes our life sooo much easier.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Seems like lately there has been several guys on TBN that just got tractors and have done more in just a few days than they had done in the previous years. Amazing what something mechanical can do vs manual labor, the machine never tires out.

 

[milkman636]

Took 5 arborvitae out today that were rubbing on the gutters along the garage. Stumps gone and all backfilled in about 2 hours this morning. It was a beautiful day for tractoring. First time this year in short sleeves.

 

[Gary Fowler]

The day after I got my tractor, I started digging this. 20 engine hours later and a few months of rain it looked like the second photo

 

[Sublifer]

The day after I got my tractor, I started digging this. 20 engine hours later and a few months of rain it looked like the second photo

Nice pond. I'm wanting to dig one too but I think my swampy terrain is gonna be too much for me to do with my tractor. My land has never been groomed. Is right next to a creek and seems the water table is high. When I get out to try it seems I can't go 10' in any direction without hitting a small pool of water. Spots in between, when it try digging I'm soon in a mud hole at least a foot deep. Seems I'm gonna need to rent a big excavator to dig my pond. Hopefully the dirt I get from that will help me raise and level some of my land.

I've got 120 acres of this. It's not all that bad. But the spot near the road where I'm gonna build is. Gotta go back half a mile to get to a good spot on one side and that'll be too much for utilities. The other side, the good parts of the land are down range from hunting plots and shooting houses. Not sure if I'll ever do anything but hunt over there.

For now about all I can do is push the brush piles left over from the loggers. Also try to pull out the cypress logs they left behind so I can make some paneling material for the bunkhouse I'm planning.

Lots to do and so little time.

 

[jonyyuma]

Gary that pond looks good. How many hours did you figure that you have digging? Did you cut it all your self?

 

[Gary Fowler]

It took me 2 days to dig it out and work the inside levees packing them with the front wheels, then a half day or so to trim down the levees from the outside and walk them down including getting on top of the levee and spreading and smoothing and packing the dirt some more. The digging was pretty easy going after I got down past the really hard dried out stuff on the top foot or so. I hit a layer of shale rock at about 5 feet underground and I left that covered that with a few inches of soil so it stays water tight. Shale is sometimes quiet porous. I dont know how thick the shale layer is in that section, but my brother in law had a pond dug several hundred yards from my location and he went over 6 feet down with his. I dont know if the digger hit shale or not, but his will hold about 12 feet of water. Mine only holds about 5 now but I plan to add a little more to the lower end levee to bring it up level with the two side levees. That should make it about 7 feet deep then. I didnt have a transit level so I just eyeballed it and the lower end turned out to be much lower than the sides when it filled with water.
As you can see in the photos, when empty it looked pretty good for levee height, but when the water filled up, it was much lower on the lower end.

 

[Scrambler82]

I purchased my tractor for snow removal, decided last minute to get a BH, WOW is all I can say.
Two tree stumps, a stone wall, a lot of snow and just a day or two ago, a run-off trench, well it is still in the process.
Trench is dug, leaching field is partially dug and then there is the overflow trench, all of which would not have been done without the tractor.

Future, two more tree stumps, the backyard patio/fire-pit project and removing 6” of top soil and leveling the yard. Not to mention all of the neighbors and their little projects.

The best toy I mean TOOL, I have ever purchased.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Well , here is another reason to have a tractor. I built a road to travel between my house and brother in laws. My wife uses a golf cart and there is a low spot where the pond overflow runs thru. We put in a culvert and rocked the road so it is now all weather without the mud.
Also use tractor to disc up and row up a spot for additional garden for corn, okra and squash. Brother in Law and I are slowly doing away with the dirt piles. There was a much larger one where the garden strip is located now that was used to fill in low spots. around the pond. I wil use some of this remaining pile to raise my pond levee a bit this summer when it dries up a bit. It has been raining just about every day for the past week.

 

[snowplow1]

Nice work on the pond Gary, I started out with about 300 yds of fill that I got for nothing giving a guy a short haul for his truck, had 45 yds left over this spring and had to wait for it to thaw. Leveled some yard and moved my small shed, now I'm waiting on an area where my fire pit is to thaw so I can finish that project. Have some wood to haul also but there is still snow in the area I have to get it from so I don't want to tear up the yard there.