Land: A New Start

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The progress is slow and each trip seems to have a large list of todos.  This created anxiety on each trip when we couldn't get everything done.  The stump grinder was a waste of time and money.  The excavator worked, but we still needed to cut down every tree before digging up the root.  The weather wouldn't cooperate and we are running out of time.     We started considering other ideas because we don't have time to build a cabin before hunting season.   We still needed to fix the road and the price of lumber was going up due to inflation.   

We need to make the end goals more realistic.  While thinking of how to move forward with living arrangements we would start by fixing the road and expand the size of the food plot.    In order to do this we decided to rent a bulldozer.  We rented a D3 from the local Warren Cat.  I felt bad for the delivery drivers since I could only give vague directions using landmarks so they could find our land.     They did an excellent job driving the semi up through those oil/gas roads.   The dozer was put exactly where I requested.

A Road to No Where

The previous owner told us he used to bring his RWD truck down to the camper which suggest the roads were in better shape in the past.  I guess the existing roads were originally about 12 FT wide.   Trees have closed on the road on both sides so that the majority was only 10 FT wide.  The majority of them are thin pines no bigger than 2 inches.  Some spots are more narrow and a couple areas had erosion channels.    The roads haven't been traveled much in the past decades and no one has tried to fix them in at least 15 years judging by the size of the trees.   

Dozers are designed to push in near straight lines.  It will lose traction in sharp turns.   If you have a lot of material on the blade turning becomes impossible with the tracks and you have to turn by adjusting the angle of the blade.   I've never operated a dozer before and couldn't pay someone to do it.    The controls are easy to understand.   The biggest learning curve is adjusting the blade to the changing ground as you go.    You can slow your speed down to a crawl while you learn how to make those changes.  I found the slope assist useful as a novice operator.  It shows what the current pitch of the blade compared to the dozer.     You can set the desired slope and the computer will make the adjustments automatically.

I was able to quickly leveled out the road.    The biggest problem I had was the blade would unearth large rocks which left pits and channels.   Raising the blade to let rocks pass gouged out large hills in front of the blade creating a washboard effect.   The only solution is to back up and try again.    At times, I hit bed rock and had to back fill the area.   Small adjustments of the blade make big changes to the ground.   Feeling the changes made by the blade is delayed because the dozer has to travel to the point of change.    These changes are amplified by the dozer.   If you make a hill by raising the blade too fast then the height will be increased as the dozer begins to climb the hill.     

Aside from basic operations, I learned the best way to make a road is to pitch the blade down on one side to create a channel along the side.  The process is repeated for the other side pushing the extra material to the middle of the road.  The final step is to make passes down the road to level it.    I think this would solve the problem I had with hitting buried rocks since there would be extra material to fill trouble areas.   There so many rocks in the soil it is impossible to get a clean pass.

This method of making roads is a good set up because it creates drain channels on both sides of a level road bed.  The road can be finished with small gravel topped with larger gravel.    This is needed to bring the trucks down safely.    

You can slow erosion by moving large stones into the ditches will slow passing water.   In theory, the road would drain into the ditches and water would pass along the side of the road.  It would also create a road wide enough to accommodate most vehicles.  Roads should have a pitch so the water will not pool on the road.

Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to complete the road and only made one pass leveling the existing road.     I don't think this will be a major issue since only two areas had erosion channels.    We will finish the road next spring.

Food Plot

We went down to the food plot after the work on the road.  We need to make the food plot bigger for the upcoming hunting season.   The dozer was able to push most trees over.   Small pines and hardwoods usually have a shallow root system.  The best way was to raise the blade and push the tree.   Most trees would fall over from the first push.   Back up and lower the blade hooking under the root ball and push out the roots.  

If the tree couldn't be pushed then raise the blade half way and push into the tree while raising the blade.     The medium size trees would pop out quickly.  The large trees could be downed by digging down with the blade on each side of the tree to remove some of it's roots then pushing it over.    It was also good to go slow at this and watch the trees movement.    The tree falling on the dozer probably wouldn't destroy it but replacing broken windows is expensive.   Broken windows or damage to the grill guard is common when clearing land according to the CAT representative.   The fact I returned the dozer without damage is worth a merit badge.

The only tree we couldn't remove was large pines.    Their large roots are too deep to be pushed over as we discovered with the excavator.   The blade cut deep in their soft wood which I think would be unsafe since the tree could snap at that point.   It was suggested the ripper could be used to dig 3 feet down around the large trees then pushing them over.    This would probably work as the removal of the surrounding dirt would make the tree unstable thus easier to push over.   I didn't get a chance to try this method because we were running out of time.  I can't say the idea of pushing over a hundred foot tall 30inch wide tree was appealing.

 

The dozer by far was the easier way to clear land.  I was surprised at the "gas mileage" and only used half a tank in 20 hours.   We were able to increase the size of the food plot by ten fold in a day.   The hard labor came from cutting the trees up so they could be moved by the tractor.  It was easier than before since the tree is on the ground when you start cutting. In fact, removing stumps is more difficult because you lose the weight of the tree as leverage.  It also saved time compared to the excavator because the dozer would remove the roots .   Some of the roots were too big for our tractor and I pushed them to the side with the dozer.  I'm not sure what to do with all these stumps aside from just letting them rot.  I was able to fill and level the area after the trees were gone.    It only took about 8 hours to clear a large area.  The food plot was expanded by at least four times.     Storms are coming and we don't have time to establish a new food plot on the other side of the property.

I was quickly reminded that I should bring extra parts and supplies.    The bar on my chainsaw failed (front bearing) while cutting up the trees but never bought an extra bar.   The bar doesn't fail often, but this one was pinched while trying to fall a large tree that didn't go the way I planned.  We ended up losing half a day while trying to find a compatible bar at the local stores.

The next issue was to figure out what to do about the cabin.

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Next: A Place to Lay Your Head