Small jobs are fun, too

As part of a small brushhogging job, this customer had a tangled mess right in their backyard.  The pictures don't tell the whole story about how thick the mess was with thick shrubs, small trees, and fallen limbs.  It only took about 20 minutes with the tractor to do what would have taken several hours to do by hand.

Here are some before and after pics:

Prepping the family farm to sell

It's always a little sad for me to see family farm land finally reach a generation that, often for many very good reasons, is no longer interested in living on an acreage.  This 78 acres has been in their family for a few generations but is being prepped to sell.  That's where I came in.

Like most days, this one started off with a beautiful sunrise over the subject property and an old outbuilding there.

After years of neglect, much of the land had been consumed by briers and brambles. See how they lean sideways? The sole purpose of this design is to poke as many holes as possible into the skin of the dude on the tractor!

No matter how hard I try to spot these obstacles before I hit them, every now and then some stray wire will sneak in and slow me down. This mess only took a few minutes to clear from the brush hog.

Clearing this fenceline was by far the toughest task of the morning.  Not only was it very steep, as you can see it was full of more brambles.

Even so, the finished product turned out great, don't you think!? 

Brushogging in the heart of the city

Even in the heart of Oklahoma City, it's easy to miss the fact that there are empty fields and lots all around us that need regular maintenance.  I've driven by the road that leads to this field more times than I could even count and didn't even know it existed.  The owner of this property is both a nurse and realtor.  This field represents a dream she's always had to develop her own neighborhood.

I love turning this:

Into this: 

Here is a before and after of a grove of 1-2 inch diameter thorn trees:

On the steep in El Reno

This rural customer on the far edge of El Reno has a large, steep drop-off at the back of her 2.5 acre home site.  Because of the slope and the busyness of life in general, she had let it grow up beyond the capabilities of her riding mower and needed my help.  She was thrilled with the work and we have a backhoe project coming up next to manicure the rest of her property.

In total, the mowing area was probably only about 1 acre but there were lots of down limbs and debris to contend with in the mowing process.

Here are some consecutive before-and-after shots.  Remember, the camera can't capture the depth of field necessary to fully contextualize the steep slope here.

Bush hog, brush hog, brushhog, rotary mower....shredder???

Every now and then, people refer to brush hogs as shredders (you did know that, didn't you?)  In case you were wondering why, this before and after pic will give you an idea.  It took less than 15 minutes to shred this entire pile of limbs, some of which were oak of almost 2 inches in diameter.

One of the less obvious complications of having something like a brush hog that goes by so many names is when you're a Craigslist addict like me who is looking for a good deal on a used one.  There are no less than five search terms that have a reasonable chance of turning up the bargain I'm looking for.

And there is your brush hog/shredder lesson for today, friends.

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.

More winter brushhogging and land clearing

A long drive down to the Slaughterville/Noble area made for a great day in a fairly remote area.  The temp was still in the 20's when I showed up so the otherwise wet, muddy ground was still hard as a rock.

Some before and after shots of the rough, rugged area.

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Winter Brushhoggin'

For obvious reasons, I don't get too many brushhogging jobs in the winter.  But this week I was called upon to brushhog a new home purchase just out of foreclosure.  It took the owners FOUR MONTHS to close the deal and when they finished, they called me immediately.  We'd been in contact for several months prior because they wanted the work done as soon as the final paperwork was signed.

As usual, the field mice were the biggest losers in the deal!  They really just hate to see me coming. :)

This is a before picture of hundreds of 1-2 inch diameter trees that had grown out of control.  By carefully backing into them with a solid brushhog at high speed, they can be relatively easily mowed down and chopped into mulch that will bio-degrade relatively quickly

In the 'after' picture, you can see how the trees have been knocked down and can easily be picked up for other uses or mowed over with a riding mower

This was a nice little semi-urban location and it was fun to see the owner's excitement as one more milestone in their project was achieved.

Beautifying an Edmond backyard

This customer had a beautiful backyard but it was full of debris and stumps (which was part of their cleanup process before I arrived.)  In the clean up process, I dug up over 50 stumps and moved almost a dozen large piles of limbs and wood into various piles in prep for small, occasional burns.  These piles would have taken forever to move by hand.

In the before pics, you can see their view barely extended halfway through their yard and from the back of the yard itself, you couldn't even see their house.

The end result looks fantastic!  They now have their backyard back and ready for seeding or whatever they choose.