Mud Bog Brush Hog

I've had some muddy tractor jobs before...like this one:

But this was the first time I'd ever brush hogged moss!

The customer owned an area of land that is basically a city drainage retention pond and it was a MESS.  The cattails are absolutely horrible about sending out seeds that can clog a radiator and cause a tractor to overheat.

The other tough part about this job is that the field was still littered with tornado debris from the 2013 tornadoes that ravaged Moore.  There's nothing like cruising along and BAM BAM BAM...hitting a chunk of metal buried in the weeds.  No matter how closely you watch for such stuff, sometimes you just can't see it.

Here's the tame view of the job when I first showed up.  Boy, did things change quickly!

I immediately hit this:

And at one point, the water had been standing there so long I actually brush hogged...MOSS!

I had to run with my bucket up (not ideal) in many places just to keep the bucket from knocking dust and seeds up into the radiator.

At one point, my tractor was actually practically floating over the mud on the very very thick reeds. Had I had skinnier tires or a heavier tractor, I would have sunk to the axles instantly.  It was very deep, thick, mushy mud.  You can't tell from the pics the danger that mess that lurked below.

Here's what things looked like when I was done.  It took me an hour to get the mud washed off!  Too bad I don't get to count that as part of the billable time. ;)

Harrah Yard Levelling Project

Last week in Harrah I made a new yard and a new friend all in one stop.

I forgot to take a before picture but imagine a really uneven, rugged, eroded surface and you'll have an idea how it looked before I got started.  Obviously it had to be bad to hire someone to get the yard ready for fescue sod.

This is one of the great things about the equipment I operate.  Although it has the highest horsepower in its class, it has a pretty narrow footprint.  That came in handy as we moved into the backyard.  I hung the 6ft box blade from the loader and eased into the backyard.  The industrial tires I run are easier on the yard than agricultural tread.

While I was there, the homeowner apologized for the old clothesline posts being in the way and that she was hoping to have someone come take them out........so I just took them out. :-)

The are by the air conditioner condensing unit was horrible but now the sod will have a nice surface in which to take root.

Here is a picture of the finished yard.  We're hoping for very little rain before the sod gets put down so the dirt won't wash out.

Pretty in Piedmont

One of the things I LOVE about this job is sharing with genuine enthusiasm a landowner/homeowner's excitement for where they live (or will soon live).  Such was the case with this project halfway between Piedmont and Cashion.

When possible, I like to start every project at my favorite time of day.  Ideally, I get to work before the sun does.  On these cold mornings, I let the hydraulics warm up while the sun makes its entrance and I enjoy the show.















The driveway started out rutted and rough, to say the least.  These pictures were taken on my first surveying trip to the property.

Notice the hackberry trees there running right through where the landowner wanted their new access.  I removed over 30 trees, a few of which were 4-5 inches in diameter, in 15-20 minutes using the loader.  I'd normally like to use a backhoe for this task but this was one of the many times where we had to call an audible with the project barely underway.

Midway through tree removal.

Shooting some grades with the 360 degree rotary laser.

Let the grading begin.

What to do with all that dirt?  The landowner had a low spot that was suffering from a LOT of erosion.  I used the extra dirt to build about a 2ft swale to re-direct the water off his property and back into the county drainage.  The red lines I added show where the water originally dumped left (in the picture) onto this land.  My hat in the left of the picture shows the elevation change and the tractor is sitting in the middle of the new runoff area. Prior, most of the watershed in this area dumped straight onto his land.

Some before and after pics of the main grading project. The picture does a good job of underestimating just how much dirt was re-located down the hill. It was A LOT.

BozHog rides again to the next jobsite! :-)

Chinaberry Chaos

How do you mow a mess so thick that you can't even walk through it?  Strategically, as it turns out.

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.