The Life of a Custom Mowing contractor

[RayIN]

I prefer to think today we are smarter than our ancestors. Just because that's the way it's always been done is not a valid reason to resist change.
re; boundary markers. Todays GPS grids system is much more accurate than the old manual system of determining boundaries. I've seen where a property line was off by several hundred feet when delineated by todays GPS system.
A neighbor lost about ¼ acre this way. The house next to him sold, new owner had his new property surveyed.
Some trees do make good property boundries today. Here in Indiana painting a vertical Purple stripe over 30" long marks your boundries, AND is also a no trespassing marker.

 

[Hay Dude]

It’s been a while since I’ve added to the thread!
Admittedly, this winter has been a slow one. Been doing a little mowing this week, so thought I’d drop a few photos for anyone interested.

Annually, I cut about 75 acres of Conservancy Land for a bigger customer. They won’t allow it to be hayed. The ground is good and frozen here, so it was a good “go time” to get it cut.

This was Tuesday at about 8AM about 18 degrees outside temp. This is the tractor path back to the field I’m about to cut.
To the left along the woods edge is the old B&O railroad berm. The one that was last used in 1972. Now just overgrown. This is the downhill gradient of the railroad berm into my little town. Now just a distant memory of our old America industrial past.

Here’s an old iron railroad marker. To the left the tracks are buried under years of cut foliage.

Not sure what “46” or “4.6” meant ????

If you look really closely, you can see rail iron to the right of the marker.

Above you can see 2 sets of power lines. To the right is an underground pipeline carrying natural gas. There’s another pipeline that carries water next to it.
I’m in the Challenger MT535B CVT today.

Here’s another view to the right. I figure this field is about 35 acres. To the right you can see a Conservancy walking trail. You can also see a yellow warning pylon for the gas pipeline. Off in the distance, you can see some green tree tubes where the Conservancy planted trees in the Riparian ROW.

About a dozen passes finished. Now under the higher power lines.I figure each pass is about 1/2-5/8 of a mile.
It’s a cloudy, cold dreary day on the PA/DE border and I’m settling in for days of field mowing.

Now I have about 25 passes done. There’s a lot of hidden obstacles in fields. I’m still not sure what this is for, but I think it’s related to the underground water pipes. Its a beefy steel pipe with a cap and its got a padlock on it.
You can also see a marker pylon for the gas pipe off in the distance.
I don’t have a pitcture of it, but a contractor who cut this fields before me ran over an electrical cut off switch in the field and cut off gas service. That person was fired and I replaced them.
I have all these obstacles burned into my memory.

It’s about 4PM and I’m done this field. I think I averaged about 4-5 acres per hour. The tractor is sitting in about the same spot as the first photo from 8AM. I keep asking the customer if I can hay this field, but they won’t allow it. It’s too bad because there’s 80-100 tons of hay here. Really frustrating, but I guess something (being paid to mow it) is better than nothing…..

 

[Hay Dude]

It’s Wednesday now and I’m still on the same mowing project. This is a smaller field, maybe 10-12 acres I am now mowing. The weather is deteriorating and snow is expected momentarily.
The house you see in the woods is an art studio from about 50 years ago. My town is rich in history, but thats about it. I think it peaked in the 60’s and then started to decline in the 70’s. The one thing that held it together was art and expensive land. That keeps the wealthy people around. But all the unique and quirky people are almost gone. I feel like I might be one of them. One of my customers call me “the last cowboy in our town”…..we’re now overrun with wealthy outsiders. I appreciate them, though. They are my source of income and most of them are nice. It just feels like the “originals” are all but gone.
Anyway…..
I’ve got a couple passes to get her opened up.

Now cutting the same field, but along the woods line. Lots of overhanging branches to screw with my cab & mirrors…..grrrrr

I love hawks, and they love me. I swear sometimes I think I was put on this earth to feed them with all the filed mowing I do.

Well, the weather man was right! Bammo it’s 3PM and it’s snowing.

Anyway, signing off for the day….

 

[Complete Turf Care]

View attachment 2788569

Could this be a 'test well'? In other words, a hole that goes down to the water table to monitor water quality. I've seen this sort of pipe with a lock at some DEQ hazardous waste sites that I help maintain. These DEQ sites are about 2 acres each and each has a test well at each corner of the site. The DEQ contractor will pull samples of the water a few times a year to monitor if any hazardous material is leaching from the waste and into the water table.

 

[Hay Dude]

Well its Thursday and the equipment really needs greasing, fuel and the blades are really dull on the CX-15. I’m just leaving the property for the day.
I took this picture of these downed cherry tree logs. Funny how they just cut them barely wide enough to egress the driveway and don’t even bother cleaning up the rest.

Maybe a little side job for me later, though?

 

[EddieWalker]

Great pics and commentary. Until I got my cab tractor, I had no idea how productive I could be in winter. I never thought of mowing in winter, but it makes sense to get it done before spring hits.

Did the landowner give you a reason why they don't want their fields cut for hay? Do they have tax breaks for ag there? I've heard that a lot of people have their fields cut for hay just so they can pay less taxes on that land, and they don't really care if it's good hay or not, just as long as they can keep the Ag Exception on their land by having it baled.

 

[Hay Dude]

Great pics and commentary. Until I got my cab tractor, I had no idea how productive I could be in winter. I never thought of mowing in winter, but it makes sense to get it done before spring hits.

Thanks. Yes cab tractors with HVAC are amazing additions to productivity and safety.

Did the landowner give you a reason why they don't want their fields cut for hay? Do they have tax breaks for ag there? I've heard that a lot of people have their fields cut for hay just so they can pay less taxes on that land, and they don't really care if it's good hay or not, just as long as they can keep the Ag Exception on their land by having it baled.

PA actually pays them more (better tax break) if you leave the land as natural grasslands.
The Conservancy assigns the land as “vacant land” and there’s little to no tax.

 

[EddieWalker]

That explains it. Thanks!!!

 

[Hay Dude]

We’ve had face to face meetings at the Conservancy about putting it back into hay production and me making a donation to pay the extra tax owed. Its a really small amount, probably in the hundreds, but they still dont want to do it.
There’s $8,000 worth of hay in that big field alone, so a couple hundred or some free mowing is a small price to pay.

 

[number two]

Could the 4 6 be the railroad gauge?

 

[Hay Dude]

Could the 4 6 be the railroad gauge?

Your guess is as good as mine. If there was a “-“ between the numbers, I was going to guess “4 - 6 MPH”.

 

[sixdogs]

Your guess is as good as mine. If there was a “-“ between the numbers, I was going to guess “4 - 6 MPH”.

Maybe a RR survey or plot marker?

 

[dodge man]

Railroads use mile markers similar to highways. It might be a mile marker.

 

[Hay Dude]

Railroads use mile markers similar to highways. It might be a mile marker.

Could be, but that rail line is very short. I think the other side has a different number on it.

Another interesting RR comment: About 300 yards up the track there’s a farm where I bale hay. The son of the owner of the farm told me on the side of the RR berm, there’s a steel door with a padlock on it. It’s buried under 50 years of dirt, debris, etc.
One day, equipped with a 4’ piece of rebar, I probed the berm for 1/2 hour or so and found something that felt/sounded like steel. I didn’t have the time/equipment to explore further.

Someday I’m going to go back and see what it was. My gut tells me its probably a small electrical room or box, but who knows.

 

[civilian]

Agree on the mile marker on the RR post. We have them on concrete posts here on an almost abandoned RR line. So many miles from the town of Bay City downstate in MI. Jon

 

[RayIN]

Sometimes I don’t know if I should just let my property owners keep going the way they are? Theres good money in clearing them

re: concerning overhanging limbs at field edge. Consider carrying a battery pole saw on your tractor.
It works for the smaller irritating limbs.

 

[Hay Dude]

Back at it this week and got into some chipping. I have a customer who will not under any circumstances burn so much as a twig. However, they have 128 acres that they neatly landscape, so all the years of brush, limbs, etc get dragged into a big pile.

It is my job to do a bi-yearly chipping of 2+ years of accumulated branches & yard debris. Here we are on day one with a 12” diesel chipper I rented from my local farm/property equipment rental shop.

Here we are on the other side of the pile, 3 days later. The original chipper had an over-heating issue, so they brought me a bigger & better one. This is the one I had originally reserved for the work, but the previous renter was late returning it. It’s muddy as heck and I’m dreading pulling it out of the valley back up to the road.
Another tree fell, right next to the pile, so we’ll clean that up while we’re here. I’m in the cab of the Challenger

Pretty much finished up. Left the customer a pickup truck size pile of chips for their use.

Notice all the broken-off trees or broken branches? This is the place where we had 100+ MPH straight line winds. Damaged thousands of trees.

 

[Complete Turf Care]

This is where a skid steer with a grapple bucket would be handy.

 

[Hay Dude]

This is where a skid steer with a grapple bucket would be handy.

Not so much for me.
I have a farm tractor with a log grapple and it works fine.

I would like to have a mini/mdi-ex with a grapple though.

 

[hayden]

Not so much for me.
I have a farm tractor with a log grapple and it works fine.

View attachment 2834873

I would like to have a mini/mdi-ex with a grapple though.

I can work a much longer day feeding branches and small trees into my chipper using the mini-ex, vs hauling and feeding them by hand. You have to be a bit more organized about stacking stuff so it's pointing in the right direction, but then it goes real fast.