Contrary to intuition, there's more to brush hogging the thick stuff than just pointing the tractor in one direction and start driving. This was a particularly tricky job because there was barbed wire (oh was there barbed wire!) lurking along what at one time was an old fence. I was hired to simply clear the fence line but as the land owner and I worked together, we quickly learned it was going to be a much bigger task. There was barbed wire littered and hidden in the thick brush as well as many rotten fence posts.
Generally one will back into these thickets with the brush hog running at optimum RPM's. Sometimes that is not an option. When you drive into this stuff, you have to be committed because backing up is not a good option. Once the trees are bent over, backing up can turn them into something akin to those tire-puncturing spikes at access-control gates. The difference here is that it's not tires we are worried about but hydraulic hoses, radiators, fuel and hydraulic filters, etc. They can be quickly punctured in situations like this.
Here is a beginning shot as well as a follow-up view after the first stage of the project. The trees ranged from 4 feet to 8 feet tall and 0.5 in to 3 inches in diameter.
The new fence will run down this newly opened lane.
Barbed wire...man that's nasty stuff.
Wrapped up real nice, eh?
After we turned the corner to head back east, the mature trees were so thick I had to wind my way back into the new fence line via quite a circuitous route.
Here's a before pic.
And then after, from the same vantage point.
A final walk through and inspection by the boss man! He was thrilled and has future plans for our next project together.
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