Cleaning up the "Back 40"

[jwasbury]

YMaybe enlarging the area of the pond would capture some of the drainage crossing the pasture.

I have considered that the pond could be enlarged. Maybe some day.

You may want to check your backhoe manual. They usually say to not pull heavy stuff chained to the bucket as it looks like you are doing in the pic. I have done it and I do think it is hard on the cylinders for some reason. Hard to say how heavy is too heavy.

Thanks for the tip, though I'm not pulling anything with the hoe bucket. In that photo, I hadn't yet chained up the bundle of trees. I attached the chain around the hoe frame, but was carrying the excess length in the bucket.

Made some progress today. It's a good time to work because it's been pretty dry. The area I am working in is still pretty wet and soft, but it's about a dry as it gets.

Here's the accumulation of dead scrub trees I've skidded out. Much of this is from last week, but added to it today.

As I thought about my approach to this project earlier this week, I decided I needed to come up with a strategy. There's so much to do, it's easy to get side tracked clearing an area, or attacking the dead standing trees all over the place. I've got to focus on the primary issue which is drainage. If it gets too wet, I can't get the machine back here to work at all. So, I directed my efforts towards getting this drainage ditch hogged out...still required removing some dead wood.

Here you can see the scene as of last week. I had dug out a section, and this photo is facing the direction that the water flows.

After removing some more dead wood, I was able to continue digging the trench on the "downstream side"

And ultimately connect it to what I previously dug.

I need to do another length or two to connect this "downstream" side to an existing water shed. Then I have some more trenching to do on the "upstream" side and I expect I be getting some good flow when we get some rain.

 

[redman135]

Are the dead trees worth using for firewood?

 

[EddieWalker]

Looks like a lot of fun. When I started clearing my land, I was doing something very similar. Then I discovered the grapple and my life was changed forever. There is nothing like being able to pick up the debris and carry it to the burn pile without every getting off the seat!!!!!

Eddie

 

[BlacknTan]

Great thread!!

I'll be following it with great interest!

 

[boggen]

be careful on the to much clearing and cleaning stuff up at one time. if EPA comes along you might get into some fines.

soil erosion, it a concern, and suddenly having a bunch of dirt/soil being sent down stream via ditches/etc...

different states, different counties, etc... may have additional rules/regs.

some may just want a drawn up plan, of doing this or that, to reduce soil errosion, and perhaps a time table.

 

[Cacinok]

be careful on the to much clearing and cleaning stuff up at one time. if EPA comes along you might get into some fines.

soil erosion, it a concern, and suddenly having a bunch of dirt/soil being sent down stream via ditches/etc...

different states, different counties, etc... may have additional rules/regs.

some may just want a drawn up plan, of doing this or that, to reduce soil errosion, and perhaps a time table.

My understanding is that the drainage ditches run to his pond only, not into a creek.

Jwasbury, looks like a fun time and great property. Standing water is a great problem to have compared to the lack of water problem around this area.

 

[Cherokee140]

Shame when you are trying to clean your own property up and you have to worry about the EPA. What has the country become.

 

[jwasbury]

Re: EPA/enviro-police. 13.5 acres in Bucks Co. PA is not a place where you "can do whatever you want." If I were excavating out an Olympic sized pool over a couple days, no doubt I would get into trouble. That's not what is happening here.

I'm working slowly (no more than a few hours per week), and I have no plans to completely clear the area. It was a pasture before, and I'm not even looking to bring it back to that point. The water that does run across my land follows an obvious path, and has done so for decades. I do not intend to alter this path, but merely wish to remove accumulated detritus that is slowing or stopping the flow that should be happening. In the initial trenching, I found boards that were silted over...apparently a "bridge" for a prior owner to cross the watershed that I am trying to refurbish. Those boards are certainly not a natural occurrence, and they altered the water flow characteristics of this land. I've look at satellite imagery of my property, and you can see the area I am trenching was clearly an active watershed in say the last 10 years, before someone plugged it up.

So, while I appreciate and understand environmental concerns and those who are tasked with policing such matters, I'm not losing any sleep over this.

Back to the pics...

Here you can see one of existing perimeter trenches. These were dug ages ago and follow the back edge of my land along the stone "fences" that are really nothing more than piled up rocks from when this land was cleared for agriculture back in the late 1800's. The trenches are full of sticks, rotten leaves, etc. I cleaned up some sections with hand tools, but want to hog them out a bit with the hoe. When we have rain, these treches do carry much water and you can see in this photo how the ground is still moist there

Taken from same spot as above, but I rotated 90 degrees left. Water from the trench heads this way.

Same location again, but another 90 degrees rotation to the left. Now looking down the property edge...there's a trench here too, but needs serious restoration.

This shot is the same direction as the 2nd one is the series above, but I moved forward 10ft or so. Here you can see the path the water takes, and this ultimately flows into the trenches I've dug. After a lot of rain, this is basically a stream.

We've had a couple inches of rain this week, so I will see how all the work done this far is "working"

 

[Carl_NH]

This looks like a long term project - it will be great to follow as it progresses from scrub to reclaimed land.

As others suggested - get the thumb for the BH and I think for your property a tooth bar and a few hooks on your bucket would be very useful too. Then attachments - do you have a brush hog now or in the plans? A small one 48" would seem to be about right to start to clear the trails and between the trees too.

Nice project and thanks for sharing all the photos!

 

[jwasbury]

Time for an update. I haven't done a whole lot with the trenching project in the last few weeks, but the Kubota has been put to good use cleaning up around the property. There was an old snowmobile/utility trailer that was sinking into the earth and rusting away next to my shed. Hauled that out to my driveway and cut it up...so it could be hauled away by a scrap metal recycler. With that done, I could dive into a project that I've wanted to do since I bought this place. A section of the back yard had been fenced in many years ago and there was a small barn/shed in that area which at one time housed goats, chickens, etc. The barn/shed was falling down when I bought this place. Demolishing that thing was the very first project I did with the tractor the first day I got it (sorry, no pics). The fenced area was overgrown with thorny brush. Today I cleared pretty much all of out.

Before. The fence line followed the edge of the grass. I removed that section of fencing last fall. You can barely make out the corner post all overgrown with brush to the right of center:

a little further back

in process with help from Nigel the Rottie-Mutt

almost there

and done for today