Pictures from a skid steer mowing contractor

[Hay Dude]

They are thick, some of the fence rows have some virgin timber in them, not sure if it's Longleaf or Loblolly pine but it's old growth probably from my grandfather's time. I often wonder what our ancestor's would think about all the changes especially in the farming industry, in my grandfather's case he farmed with a mule and the only tractor he ever owned was a Farmall, and to him that was a huge improvement, imagine what they would think about today's equipment.

I have some idea of what they would think….
10 years ago, I took over a typical PA farm. It was farmed for 60 years+ by the same man. He was 94 when I arrived and had dementia, but still had good days and could walk.
He and his 60 year old son were relieved that I was able to take over the place and keep it going in exchange for crop.
He was amazed at the speed of ”newer” machinery that I had. He’d bring out a lawn chair and watch me round bale. He passed in 2018 and his ashes are scattered in a tree grove atop a hill on the farm. A great man. A giant with hands 2x the size of mine and mine are pretty big. I could never do what he did.
Now we are doing large square bales with a big German made Krone square baler. He was 2nd generation German. Loved his Deutz tractor and Brown Swiss cows and German traditions.
I think his mind would have been blown by the Krone baler.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

I have some idea of what they would think….
10 years ago, I took over a typical PA farm. It was farmed for 60 years+ by the same man. He was 94 when I arrived and had dementia, but still had good days and could walk.
He and his 60 year old son were relieved that I was able to take over the place and keep it going in exchange for crop.
He was amazed at the speed of ”newer” machinery that I had. He’d bring out a lawn chair and watch me round bale. He passed in 2018 and his ashes are scattered in a tree grove atop a hill on the farm. A great man. A giant with hands 2x the size of mine and mine are pretty big. I could never do what he did.
Now we are doing large square bales with a big German made Krone square baler. He was 2nd generation German. Loved his Deutz tractor and Brown Swiss cows and German traditions.
I think his mind would have been blown by the Krone baler.

I also believe that they would be amazed at the speed and production improvements, they were a generation of strong people , as they say they had a lot of hard bark on them because they had to face much adversity, I'm thankful that I have never had to worry about the things they did, sometimes it was just about surviving and they were good at it, I would like to think I could cut it and I believe I could but I'm glad I haven't had to.

 

[EddieWalker]

I sometimes think of what it must of been like for the farmers to clear their fields back before modern hydraulics, or even diesel engines. It's amazing to me to wonder about the time and effort it took to create a pasture. Then to build a house and a barn, and fence it all in back then is just amazing. When I drive by a farm, I wonder what it took to build it? How they where able to do it, and how I'm struggling with a backhoe and several tractors to try and do the same thing.

 

[FriendwithTractor]

I taught my grandmother to drive a zero turn by comparing it to the reins of a team. It was "Newfangled technology" before that, but now I catch her puttering around on her little Husqvarna zero turn clucking Gee and Haw like it listens. What's old is new again.

Often I wonder what she thinks of the town now as compared to when she was a girl. Her parents old farmstead is now a university park.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

I sometimes think of what it must of been like for the farmers to clear their fields back before modern hydraulics, or even diesel engines. It's amazing to me to wonder about the time and effort it took to create a pasture. Then to build a house and a barn, and fence it all in back then is just amazing. When I drive by a farm, I wonder what it took to build it? How they where able to do it, and how I'm struggling with a backhoe and several tractors to try and do the same thing.

Before my dad passed he used to tell me story's about him and my granddaddy digging and pulling pine lighter stumps in these fields on the farm that I live on, he and I would use a tractor and a chain to pull myrtle bushes out of the drainage ditches we had on the farm because when I was a boy we didn't have a front end loader so we would hook the chain to a shackle on the drawbar and pull them out, it always seemed like we did this in the dog days of July and August and I wondered then how in the world did they pull all those stumps by hand digging and a mule.

 

[paulsharvey]

Fire was a big part of it, another part was ringing trees out, lot of manual labor, and a key point, Sometimes it better to plow around a stump than spend weeks digging it out.

 

[two_bit_score]

Funny thing about lighter pine stumps. I had a dead pine tree fall behind the house in E. Texas a couple weeks ago. I was kinda busy and left it there a few days after it fell. Finally cleaned it up and started to pull the stump with the backhoe. That thing was solid lighter. Rich as could be. Now I need to take some time and get it out of there for kindling starter. There are a couple more dead ones in there and I hope they are all going to be lighter stumps.

But I've seen some dead pine tree stumps that you can kick and they turn to dust.

 

[paulsharvey]

I 'think' it depends on how/when they die. It seems like a lot of the lightning kills have a lot of lighter, and I'm sure it depends on time of year, and sap content at t.o.d

 

[Lineman North Florida]

Funny thing about lighter pine stumps. I had a dead pine tree fall behind the house in E. Texas a couple weeks ago. I was kinda busy and left it there a few days after it fell. Finally cleaned it up and started to pull the stump with the backhoe. That thing was solid lighter. Rich as could be. Now I need to take some time and get it out of there for kindling starter. There are a couple more dead ones in there and I hope they are all going to be lighter stumps.

But I've seen some dead pine tree stumps that you can kick and they turn to dust.

If it's old growth it's gonna be fat lighter, some of these other fast growing varieties like new improved slash pine won't be nothing to it, stumps will rot out in just a couple of years.

 

[two_bit_score]

If it's old growth it's gonna be fat lighter, some of these other fast growing varieties like new improved slash pine won't be nothing to it, stumps will rot out in just a couple of years.

This was a fairly young tree with a diameter 3 feet from the ground of about 8".
I agree 'old growth' usually produces better 'lighter'.