What to do with the swampland?

[ruffdog]

Is all that wire from the tire bead?

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Is all that wire from the tire bead?

It is. I don't know if that wire came out while my payloader dragged my tractor up my driveway, but that tire is shot and a PITA to handle since I cannot hose off the sticky Beet Juice (might go at it with some buckets of water later on today). Monday I quest for a replacement tire as snow is coming.

 

[big bubba]

looks like you've created a monster...enjoy

 

[ruffdog]

It is. I don't know if that wire came out while my payloader dragged my tractor up my driveway, but that tire is shot and a PITA to handle since I cannot hose off the sticky Beet Juice (might go at it with some buckets of water later on today). Monday I quest for a replacement tire as snow is coming.

Wow, when it rains it pours! Git er done Eric!

 

[MinnesotaEric]

I would freeze eventually, you need to pack a trail down wider than your tractor to compact the snow and cat tails down and let it sit for a while with a good stretch of cold weather if it snowed then you have to pack it down again if you have a few days above 32 degrees Fahrenheit you would have to wait some more... for a tractor that size you probably need 12'' of ice to support it.

My neighbor tells me, "Eric, I've rescued a couple of cars out of that swamp."

"Why didn't you tell me the swamp never freezes up?" I asked.

"Because I thought it was a conversation we never needed to have," my neighbor deadpanned.

So according to my neighbor, whose Grandfather once owned the land I own, and back when the municipal road was but a 10' wide twisty driveway going across the swamp and when the swamp was five feet higher than it is right now (we're in a drought here too in the land of ten-thousand lakes), the swamp never froze up (thereby explaining the fish I remember seeing in the swamp when I was a kid).

 

[Everhard]

Pretty shocked that tire popped off. I wonder if the tire chain caught something? then either getting pulled by the Hough got it off or just wheel spin? Love the Hough btw. Can't imagine why I'd need one but I still want one!
Oh - and so how much further did the swamp monster end up moving? I think you should track that as well as you vs the swamp...

E.

 

[yanmars]

I have a similar area near the river. Part I think was caused by a road that followed the river years ago but flooded often and was abandoned. The roadway was built up some and that dirt is still there and traps water trying to flow downhill and get to the river. Watching your posts with interest.
I "cleared" out an area of less than an acre. The contractor said to tile it to the river. Really not sure how equipment could get in to do that. Also full of scrub trees and junk ones.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

I have a similar area near the river. Part I think was caused by a road that followed the river years ago but flooded often and was abandoned. The roadway was built up some and that dirt is still there and traps water trying to flow downhill and get to the river. Watching your posts with interest.
I "cleared" out an area of less than an acre. The contractor said to tile it to the river. Really not sure how equipment could get in to do that. Also full of scrub trees and junk ones.

What I think I know about my bog/swamp is that if the approach angle (which has mostly been underwater for 40 years and nobody has thought about it until now) holds firm (as my front axle sank down about 3' until my loader hit the sculpture), if that angle continues, then 30' in and the bog is 6' deep. This is not surprising since the bog used to be part of the lake, until the first loggers cut a driveway loop up to my area to make a summer camp that also cut the bog off from the lake (and likely wrecking havoc with our pike and bass fisheries on the lake).

As a matter of a cluster-eff with extra sauce, Monday I chased off to Bemidji to get a new tire put on, where the tire shop pointed out the rim had a dig in it. This dig, had I known about it should have been easy enough to straighten out with a torch and a couple of adjustable wrenches, but the tire shop couldn't get it right and put a tube in and sent me on my way in the dark. The next day I procrastinated putting the wheel back onto my tractor because I hate putting on the tire chains and waited until it started snowing. Because why? Why not until motivated by snow. Even so, when I unloaded the wheel, I noticed the tire was mounted backward on the wheel ensuing another trip to the tire shop in Bemidji driving through the snowstorm both ways. Neat.

By the time I got home it was 6PM and immediately I set to putting the wheel back onto my tractor and fighting the tire chain on in the dark as the snowstorm arrived in force. I popped out the valve from the valve stem in the dark not paying attention much to deflate the tire to help pop the chain on. Somewhere along the way, I got tired of working under the dim, warm light provided by my year-round string lights and got out a proper work light so I could see what I was doing in the middle the the storm and finished putting on the chain, and wiring it up.

Finished with the chain, I went to screw the valve back into the valve stem, when the valve stem popped back into the wheel because the tire shop didn't use an inner tube with a threaded valve stem and I didn't think to look in the dark.

With the wheel now bolted up and the tire chain mounted and safety-wired on, out came picks and prayers until I could get the valve stem out enough to screw on a valve stem installation tool and pull the valve stem all the way out. Then I had to hold the valve stem in place so I could push on a locking air chuck to fill up the tire.

Which is to say, putting the wheel and tire chains on and airing up the tire to 45psi took me two hours of work, and 45-thousand ten foot back and forth trips to my toolbox in the garage in the middle of a gusting snow storm.

The only good thing about the snow storm is it did sort of dilute the beet juice that was covering my driveway where the busted wheel was taken off and then tracked all over.

We're supposed to get more snow over the next two days.

 

[lpakiz]

I suggest that to make a frozen road to your chosen location, that you use a 4-wheeler or UTV to pack down a track to the aforementioned location. Drive it out there and pack it down every time it snows. Be sure you go wide enough so you don't fall off when you take your tractor on it. By February, you will probably be able to drive your tractor out there.

Myself, I would "probe" your newly frozen road PRIOR to actually driving on it with your heavier tractor. Use a long masonry bit and a cordless drill. I wouldn't be out there with less than 16" of frozen something underfoot.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

I suggest that to make a frozen road to your chosen location, that you use a 4-wheeler or UTV to pack down a track to the aforementioned location. Drive it out there and pack it down every time it snows. Be sure you go wide enough so you don't fall off when you take your tractor on it. By February, you will probably be able to drive your tractor out there.

Myself, I would "probe" your newly frozen road PRIOR to actually driving on it with your heavier tractor. Use a long masonry bit and a cordless drill. I wouldn't be out there with less than 16" of frozen something underfoot.

In Minnesota, if you have a ditch with one evasive cattail growing in it, it is considered a wetland, a conservation delight that dictates all lawful uses of land, requires special provisions from unelected bureaucrats on-high, and carries the populist assumption that if messed with, all waterfowl, fisheries, and game refuges would suffer irreparable damage, thereby affecting the quality of life of all future generations of children. No, for the sake of the children, you cannot just build a road in Minnesota.

Now you could apply for a hardship variance, pay the $250 bucks only to have a retired teacher who somehow got on the Planning Commission not by competence, degree, or experience, but through nepotism, politely tell you to eff-off and your destructive capitalist plans unless it is explained, that after construction, the road shall be condemned to the state so that public access may be granted to bird watchers, who, unable to afford binoculars, will be able to gain access to the swamp and its rich ecosystem of swampish animals only by the provision of this proposed, wheelchair accessible drive which includes at least four parking spaces off of the right-of-way. Only then might you have a chance to build a road, but only if you promise to purchase through the Minnesota Conservation Fund an equal amount of wetlands that your driveway shall destroy that shall forever remain under the watchful eye and control of the MN DNR.