OH_Varmntr's Creek Clearing Thread w/ Pics and Videos

[tex]

Yeah, I'd say so. Good luck, keep us all posted.

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

I've cleaned/cleared quite a few fence rows and ditches and to me your making it harder on yourself by knocking them all down first. I prefer to do a few at a time. That way you are bucking in a tangled jungle on on top of each other. Cuts out a lot of the danger of tree rolls or saw pinching due to all the extra weight. Not to mention the tripping factor of all that brush when your trying to saw.

Didn't notice a lot of it in the pics but make sure to look for vines and hangups. Look up as others have said. Vines will twist them every which way and the type of cuts your making cab give you a swinger real easy. PLEASE take the time to clear the brush around and give yourself several escape routes.

Trust me, you have a LOT of work ahead of you and dropping them is the easy part.

Here's one 3/4 miles long. We pulled ALL the trees to one side to make it easy. We windrow the brush and leave firewood in the row. Makes load days easy and burnt all the brush QUICKLY by starting several piles and pushing it in with backhoe.

 

[Diesel nut]

I appreciate that Jeff and will keep it in mind. I've got a bunch of friends, and a totally capable brother, but not many want to help a guy out for free ya know? There's gotta be something in it for them. I buy them breakfast, lunch and beer at the end of the day. Guess it's not enough anymore...

I plan on going back tomorrow for a couple more hours of cutting. I'll take some more pics :msp_thumbup:

If I had more free time and we lived closer I wouldn't mind helping either. I just simply enjoy being out there cutting things up. I got a little time to do a little cutting about a week ago and man that was sure a lot of fun. I hear ya on havin the safety gear! I got into my ankle a little with the saw a week ago. Just scraped me up a little thats all. Needless to say I ordered some safety boots, chaps and a hard hat-face shield-ear protection deal. It's a Christmas gift from the old man. Stay safe out there. Looks like you'll have plenty of wood for sure. Maybe sell a little of it?

 

[AIM]

I have a question about your friends whole project here in general, maybe you will know the answer maybe not but I was just curious. You said they were pulling the fields out of CRP and planning on tiling the fields, why are they pulling the stumps out of the ground that are growing right on the ditch bank? Seems this will cause quite a bit of erosion and lost of bank stabilization (the main reason for CRP), I work in the conservation field and would be concerned with pulling all these stumps out of a waterway. Why not just cut the stumps flush to the ground and kill them with herbicide? Means more firewood for you too and maybe easier work?

Not trying to pry but was interested in your project (I hate to see any open space plowed up for field crops, but that's a conversation for another day).

If you look at the first few pics of the ditch you can see how steep the banks are. When these ditches flood. (and they do quite often) the water will eventually undermine the stumps and the stump will come loose and hang up downstream somewhere and cause a jam.
They will remove the stumps and cut the banks back in a real wide "V" instead of the narrow "U" that it is now. The ideal bank is a 3 to 1 (3 feet back for every foot of rise) but usually about a 2 to 1 is adequate. Once the ditch is cut back they will plant a deep rooting grass along the banks.
After this the farmer will usually leave about 30' of the top on both sides untilled and planted with grass to stop silt runoff.
Ditches done this way will flow better. Hold up longer and retain their grade much better.

I was hired by my county to do this to a lot of ditches. To bad my county does this all in house now versus subcontracting out. It was fun work.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Nice explanation AIM!

I had the same concern myself, if they just took the trees off the existing ditch it would be highly erodable. The method you laid out sounds real good.

 

[bluestem]

If you look at the first few pics of the ditch you can see how steep the banks are. When these ditches flood. (and they do quite often) the water will eventually undermine the stumps and the stump will come loose and hang up downstream somewhere and cause a jam.
They will remove the stumps and cut the banks back in a real wide "V" instead of the narrow "U" that it is now. The ideal bank is a 3 to 1 (3 feet back for every foot of rise) but usually about a 2 to 1 is adequate. Once the ditch is cut back they will plant a deep rooting grass along the banks.
After this the farmer will usually leave about 30' of the top on both sides untilled and planted with grass to stop silt runoff.
Ditches done this way will flow better. Hold up longer and retain their grade much better.

I was hired by my county to do this to a lot of ditches. To bad my county does this all in house now versus subcontracting out. It was fun work.

This is the option of choice here as well AIM, looking back at the pictures those banks are cut very steep, it's good to know that conservation practices are being installed. I look forward to watching this project evolve. I do a lot of similar work here for the county conservation district, we just finished a creek restoration on about 3 miles of stream, it's amazing how much better they look and function now.

Hopefully that 026 is up and running!

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

This is the option of choice here as well AIM, looking back at the pictures those banks are cut very steep, it's good to know that conservation practices are being installed. I look forward to watching this project evolve. I do a lot of similar work here for the county conservation district, we just finished a creek restoration on about 3 miles of stream, it's amazing how much better they look and function now.

Hopefully that 026 is up and running!

This all amazes me. We've put in new waterways on our farms. the biggest was a 240 acre watershed with up to 50 ft of fall so you will now what that means Some were done with our County soil and water with cost share. Back in the 80's a neighboring farmer decided to straighten a creek out as is had numerous S switchback and islands everywhere. Taking a good bit of his hand from erosion every year. He found a guy who would do the excavation for being able to sell the "pit run" gravel to cover the cost. If you brought your own truck he'd load for cheap. We got a lot as we we building a feeding floor at the time.

Guy had a screener set up to sift the gravel and was doing a beautiful job with the ground work. The corp. of engineers came in and said he had to stop AND he had to put everything back. All the neighbors liked what he was doing so our only thought was the local gravel pit was responsible. He was doing nothing but HELPING the situation and he was understandably upset. Fought it in court and lost. I think it was more of a power /control thing and who you are situation. It ended up costing him a lot of money so anyone considering doing it, better get the blessing as you could get burned.

In our area you can get fined for having equipment in the creek bed. If your reaching from the bank you're okay.

Sad, but in this day and age it's no longer YOUR land. YOU just pay the taxes on it.

 

[c5rulz]

I have a question about your friends whole project here in general, maybe you will know the answer maybe not but I was just curious. You said they were pulling the fields out of CRP and planning on tiling the fields, why are they pulling the stumps out of the ground that are growing right on the ditch bank? Seems this will cause quite a bit of erosion and lost of bank stabilization (the main reason for CRP), I work in the conservation field and would be concerned with pulling all these stumps out of a waterway. Why not just cut the stumps flush to the ground and kill them with herbicide? Means more firewood for you too and maybe easier work?

Not trying to pry but was interested in your project (I hate to see any open space plowed up for field crops, but that's a conversation for another day).

The stumps aren't going to matter. If that field is going to have tiling done and the plan is grain production, they will have very large equiptment in to do the work. All the stumps and trees if they still exhist will be pushed in a big pile and burned. Tilers do this work very quickly.

I do disagree with this statement you made:

You said they were pulling the fields out of CRP and planning on tiling the fields, why are they pulling the stumps out of the ground that are growing right on the ditch bank? Seems this will cause quite a bit of erosion and lost of bank stabilization (the main reason for CRP), I work in the conservation field and would be concerned with pulling all these stumps out of a waterway. Why not just cut the stumps flush to the ground and kill them with herbicide?



Trees and their roots do not hold banks. Proper slope and the establishment of filter strips with grass hold banks much better than trees do. Especially during flash flooding which is common in a farm field.


The loss of CRP along with farm practices, and bad nesting seasons have destroyed pheasant hunting in Iowa. BTW, one of my buddies runs a tiling business in Iowa.

 

[jrider]

I have had a few connections with farmers wanting trees cut and some decent sized ones too, but never a project that big. Any idea how many cords of wood you are going to pull out of there? Just curious....and jealous.

 

[Hedgerow]

You guys must have different CRP (crop reduction program) programs than I have ever heard of before. They started the CRP program many years ago to help farmers bring the price of grain, hay, whatever crop up, so the farmers could make better money. The gov would pay the farmer to not farm that chunk of land for X many years, thus reducing the supply of say grain, and thus increasing the cost of that crop, less supply same demand. However this program has never worked due to the farmers being so dam greedy they ended up screwing themselves in a way, but at taxpayers expense. Farmer Brown would put 1000 acres into CRP, getting paid for nothing, then would just go down the road a little, buy another 1000 acres of land and plant it in whatever crop he was going to plant on the CRP acres to begin with, so no change in supply and demand. Basically taxpayers are buying these farmers more land for free, so guess good deal for them, bad deal for us. The funny part is now they are complaining about how little their crops are worth, lol

I hope you didn't type this post while eating something...
Just sayin...
:choler:

 

[OH_Varmntr]

I have had a few connections with farmers wanting trees cut and some decent sized ones too, but never a project that big. Any idea how many cords of wood you are going to pull out of there? Just curious....and jealous.

A BUNCH!!!!!!!! :smile2:

I honestly have no idea. I unhooked the cart and took a ride around the property and realized there's MUCH MUCH MUCH more wood back there than I thought.

I threw a number out of 5-6 years of supply, but there's EASILY double that, I think. Just a guess but I'd say close to 100 cord or better?

As far as selling the wood, if I have to I will, but I have 4 acres of land, with a solid acre of overgrown weeds. So I've got plenty of area to store it, but it will be a TON of work.

I've had a few people recommend that I only drop a few trees at a time, buck them up and go on. I simply do not have the time to do a few, get them out and keep going.

It will be easiest and most efficient to get them all down then go from there. As far as safety goes, all I can say there is I'm learning, and doing the best I can to be as safe as possible.

The landowners have heavy equipment as they have an excavation company and also do tile work. So they are well prepared for the task at hand.

Once winter sets in and the ground can withstand my truck and trailer, I'll be going back and start hauling. Once spring breaks and the ground sets up, the real work will begin with the heavy equipment.

I will continue to post pictures of the progress, including the dredging and everything. :msp_thumbup:

 

[jrider]

Just a guess but from what you've shown so far, you should easily have over 100 cords. Am thinking you will be selling quite a bit of this. To store it in your field you can always run a couple logs across the ground then pile the rest up on a 90 degree turn from them and store the wood for a while with little worry about it rotting anytime soon...this wet weather has to break at some point right?

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

A BUNCH!!!!!!!! :smile2:



I've had a few people recommend that I only drop a few trees at a time, buck them up and go on. I simply do not have the time to do a few, get them out and keep going.
:msp_thumbup:

When I said do a few at a time I meant just buck them up. You can haul the firewood out at a later date. It's just WAY easier to do that as the amount of brush you have to FIGHT to saw WILL be less. Been there , learned that. Are you bucking just lengths or Logs?

I'd make a suggestion to sell enough next year to buy yourself a building to store wood in. If you let this sit outside for 10 years it'll be toast unless you want a Blue tarp field and all that goes with it. Have fun!

 

[OH_Varmntr]

Quite a bit more progress. Have cut 4 days now, about 3-4 hours each day.

Got a big cottonwood down today. Not HUGE but the biggest I've ever done. But big enough my 20" bar was definately not enough bar.

Also found a tree with a honeybee hive in it. Didn't know it until it hit the ground and shattered. They didn't bother us though, not much activity going on in there.

Cottonwood going over.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wzplg6VObkY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>