IT IS DONE! Wow, 38 days after I started it is done and what a land clearing job it was. 18 acres on a steep mountainside, covered with ledge rock and mounds. In all I spent 200 hours on an excavator and 200 hours on a bulldozer ripping out stumps and changing the typography. In all it took removing over 6000 stumps and moving 50,000 cubic yards of earth, working 12 hour days 7 days a week to do it. The land clearing job also included building two roads, a pad for a new barn, constructing two sediment ponds, and installing numerous culverts. The gravel work was done by a separate crew however. It was a pretty amazing feat though seeing as how I was working with mid-sized equipment; a 1 yard excavator (Hitachi 160) and a 3 yard bulldozer (John Deere 700 LT). They paid the price too, losing a track off the excavator and breaking the tracks on the bulldozer literally in two; twice! But after not seeing my wife and kids for the last 6 weeks, I am ready for a break. In other words, time to take my bulldozer back into the woods and go logging again! (View from the top of the new pasture) (Excavator when it lost its track)
Now that the land has been cleared, what are the plans to keep it that way? Is the area now mowable? Quite a project LT... enjoy your time back home.
So I guess your having a sale on stumps, buy one - get 10 free That's a lot of work, now get ready for winter
Well done respect and appreciate the description of work done. 200 hrs in 160 (or any machine) ripping stumps is no joke - unless you been in a machine for hrs day after day you couldn't explain it - i couldn't function after 30 hrs in one week. Did you get the wood or just the site work? I see eagle rental on machine - waterville me? - great folks - took care of me (CT flatlander) like i was neighbor...
We were able to use a lot of soil on the South half of the site to cover up ledge rock outcroppings, as well as much of the East and West, but the North is, and will forever be, ledge rock. I would say this area is contained to about 5 acres. It is unique in that it is not sloped, but terraced so much of it could be bushogged in the future. It won't be an easy job, hunt and poke, and on steep terrain, but doable to keep the brush down. The site is for an expanded horse program to attract more campers. Since this is a Christian camp that gives scholarships to impoverished children so they can enjoy summer camp, it means more children will hear the gospel. Last year 110 children out of 770 kids became believers! To that goal of attracting more kids, we were hoping to include a playing field, but it would have required 14 feet of fill on the lower side on the flattest part of the field, so the idea was nixed. We were fortunate in that we were able to hit two springs for both ponds and took a wet area that looked nasty and turn it into something usable. The roads are simply for horse riding and access. A gun range was also built that I did not mention earlier. A lot of work, but a lot accomplished in 38 days.
No I did not get the wood though the camp did get the bigger hardwood. They burn around 80 cord of wood a year because they are opened year around, something few camps do. They would have received about $7100 for the amount of wood harvested, but got only $3500 to account for the 80 cords of wood that was harvested for their behalf. All things taken into account, it comes down to $855.55 per acre for land clearing. Fuel, labor, equipment rental, etc. Kind of on the high side, but it included a lot of non-clearing items like digging ponds, building roads, rifle ranges...and the site was incredibly rugged. Lots of Volkswagen sized boulders, steep and teeming with ledge. As for the rental company, it indeed was Eagle Rental out of Waterville. Dan and his wife are both Christian's and are great people. In a lot of instances Rental of equipment this big is indeed the way to go because of the upkeep of equipment. Now don't get me wrong, I want a John Deere 850-J as much as the next guy, but until I get one, I'll have to endure renting them.
Maine has a way of exploding alders, juniper, etc in cleared spaces. I know you're well aware. Yep... keeping that nice big space cleared is going to be a lot. Maybe some of the kids will get a chance to help? Sounds like a nice area.
The thrown track is a bummer but easier to fix on an excavator than a bulldozer. My uncle works for the local JD dealer so I get to play with alot of new equipment. Sure wish I could afford it.
With an Uncle like that, why buy I did get braces as a kid, my uncle was an orthodintist, I'd rather have crooked teeth and use of that machinery
Lol. We used to paint and set up equipment for most of the dealers in our area. I have ran all kinds of and brands kind got spoiled. He had a new John Deere 850 and 1050 last year to level out our old motocross track but I lost the pictures when my old phone got destroyed.
