Day 142 - Yard Glider, Moving Stumps, Box Blade and Ditch Cleaning

[Applause] hi stay stay she thinks my tractor sexy [Music] they see me rolling where [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Switching gears back over to the the area that we had forestry mulched this particular Corner they didn't get into the corner too deep and and really clean up everything and that was intentional because the ground is not flat at all right around here it's really lumpy and bumpy and we have their underground electrical service one of the uh the ground Mount boxes the junction boxes that they use is right there and we really didn't want anything to hit that whether it was the skid steer or anything falling on top of it so everything we're doing here is just basically the same thing as the Forester molter just in a much more controlled fashion this group of trees right here there's a maple and and a sweet gum and some other small stuff it's all vine damaged it it it just doesn't look good there's nothing there's nothing saying leave this here and I've got some future plans for this little bit of an area so they had to come down uh one of them was a maple tree so I saved all the wood from it as much as the wood as I can from it to chop up uh for the smoker so this wood isn't going to waste by any means uh but with it gone we have a much better visual into the uh mulched Pine area and like said i' I've got some plans for this little area right here I just don't know when I'll get around to it as you come up the driveway that that group of trees that just didn't belong kind of blocked your view but with those gone you can see how the trees around the driveway kind of framed the driveway and frame this view into those cleared Pines in the back or further along and it just kind of gives it this almost like this Grand feeling of of of the trees and the driveway just open opening up into this much larger viewing area that has much longer lines of sight so the the driveway kind of frames your focus into those Pines and I really like how this looks we got our first rain in a while in a long time can you see where they put the electricity line I knew that was going to happen everything was just so dusty anytime you dig a hole dig a trench and try and put the dirt back in it even if you put something else in there you're never going to fill it in I knew this was coming no big deal I got a I'm going to get a rear blade for the tractor just drag it on angle and fill that in today sorry if my hands are shaky I've been wearing myself out with that today I went down this whole side of the driveway and all of the large trees I got the oh I just found another one D gum this tree right there there's another Vine I'm today's Vine day I'm getting all the vines cut at the bases of these trees so they'll die in the tree rather than pull them down here's a good example right we've got these two large beautiful Hardwoods that extend over the driveway so I don't know if you can tell but this tree right here those leaves look totally different than those leaves These are nice nice bushy wide leaves and these are not these are uh oh leaves of a walnut tree I believe that's a walnut tree I think so could be wrong could be wrong but anyway all of this is Vines I just took the time to get into this tree got all the vines around here and found out that that that tree and that one are wrapped in barb wire so there was at least a fence in between these two which gives me an indication of where it went along this line of the driveway anyway I got two done and I'm going to go this way and get that one and that one and that one but first I got to get where did it go that one so these fuzzy Vines like this that's poison ivy so what I've been doing let's see if I can do this one-handed is chopping the base all right disconnected at the base and then I'll work my way up ah I can't do this one handed there we go and pull off a section of it now technically speaking this side can't get nutrients from this side anymore so everything north of this or higher than it should die but I like to give it another foot or two I feel really clumsy doing this with one hand there we go so there get out of my way sticks Vine is terminated this one will not grow now this smaller one will now the smaller one won't and I'll work my way around the tree to make sure this Vine right here is driving me nuts so maybe we can maybe we can just push it just slightly and it let's go all right I'm going to work my way around the tree [Music] I don't know what that sound is every time we come out here we identify a new animal sound I feel like I uh haven't been behind the camera much this week because so much stuff going on as expected um so we are kind of in limbo on figuring out the shop dirt pad I got to get someone in here to uh grade it properly and and flatten it out it was never finished when the pad was installed uh so that has to happen I've been trying to line up the concrete guy to come out here and take a look at it and figure out what needs to be done again dealing with somebody else's schedule is always kind of chaotic and crazy uh I'm on the top of my truck by the way just getting a better view of what's going on up here it's fun to just kind of look around and and see the progress and see what else needs to be done just kind of take a bird's eye view of everything and um just take it all in because there there is so much stuff going on so much stuff going on we got rain finally so remember when we were forced REM mulching all this in the last video and it was just an absolute insane dust cloud well we got rain so the dust has subsided and because of which I spent a little bit of time out here uh in the 2 acre clearing in the middle of it trying to clean it up with a um a box blade let me spin you around and give you a bird's eyee overview I guess you can they have this whole 2 acre clearing and then I got to get to work just to recap everything uh we mulched over here so we could see through the driveway that's an awesome decision I think coming up the driveway this is where we normally stage all of our stuff because this has the most amount of shade that is South so these trees do a good job of of uh shading while we don't have a structure out here just yet this is the root ball graveyard is what I'm calling it where I started rolling the root balls out of these big from these big trees over to there that filled up so I'd cut a trail in here to push the root balls over there that is a tremendously timec consuming Operation Rolling the root balls rolling the root balls rolling so we we we brought in something else I'll talk about in just a second this is a yard glider super cool super handy uh but this I'm not sure if I want to extend this Trail off into something else or simply use all of these root balls as a back stop to put my plates up right there and then have that as our shooting range area uh if I pile the root balls behind it then all of the root balls can take the shrapnel and all that stuff and um of course it'll be a back stop to prevent stuff from going further so I think that's that's what we're leaning towards is that's going to be the shooting range area then right uh off to this side over here is the last pile of logs to go out of here well actually this pile as well as this pile this is the last of the logs so I don't know if you remember but I was stacking stuff over here as I was cleaning up that's completely gone so in between these two piles of logs is an old burn pile with a few uh root balls on it and that's for my daughter to play with she wants to jump around and play with those root balls that's fine and then down here is our last burn pile uh that we've been burning to get rid of the rest of the root balls and in the middle you don't see any root balls finally no logs no root balls very little debris been doing a lot doing a lot cleaning this up what else we have going on on this side over here all of this is cleaned up as far as the tree debris as far as um stuff that major stuff that'll burn uh I do have one more burn pile over here that I'm not too sure what I'm going to do with uh because I made the mistake of stacking um a couple larger rotting logs on top which prevents me from pulling the smaller stuff on the bottom to mulch it or chip it so I'm not sure what we're going to do with that this still needs a little bit of cleanup work over here and I've got a tree that I need to take down uh over there that's dying from Beatles uh Beatles is not a huge problem but I've identified a few trees that are in need of removal I guess you could say and here we are back at the driveway so let me um I don't know where to get started I've got so many different options I've got to keep doing some more box blade stuff over here and dig out one more small tree that was that was in the middle of the burn pile and never burned up which is kind of wild it's basically a a super strong sled that you can pull behind anything and this seems to be the best combo for us here on the property my wife has been using this a lot uh pulling it behind the side by side she finds loading sticks up on here uh to be way easier to load up not than the Box on the or the bed on the side by side not only is it easier to load up you can load up more and it's just as easy to empty right so on the um on the bed of the side by side you can just tilt the bed it's a dump bed uh but on this one you just pick up one side and roll it over so it's it's pretty darn easy to use the main reason I got it is to move these root balls or move them from over there to basically where they're at now and unfortunately I wasn't able to use it for the for the majority of the root balls because I just underestimated how large these are these are just freaking huge huge huge and heavy so the lift capacity of my tractor is 2200 lb at the loader on the front loader and of course that's just the manufacturer's lifting capacity right you can do a little bit more than what it what what the numbers State on basically everything like a like a truck how many times have you seen a half half ton truck pulling what should be pulled by like a 3/4 ton or a one ton right you can overload them it's not safe to do but and it's not recommended by the manufacturer but you can do it right you can do it so that being said I know these root balls are heavy I know that they are stupid heavy because there's several of these in this pile that my tractor cannot pick up absolutely cannot pick up well the lift capacity on my tractor is is right at 2200 lb and I believe the the weight capacity of the yard glider was like 23 100 lb something like that they're very very similar and I used it to move a few of the larger root balls with no problems but then I got to where all I had left was the super large ones and I'm thinking do I really want to tear this thing up just to test it no I kind of don't this the the yard glider ended up being super handy for us so I don't want to tear it up and my biggest concern with tearing it up isn't necessarily being able to pull it it's it's the fact it's basically the the problem is the shape of the root balls the shape of the root balls is you know you got roots on one side which are kind of twisty and and Pokey in certain areas and then on the other side of the actual roote sticking down you have the stump so my thinking was you're going to have a very small contact point on the yard glider to where you have all of this force and all this pressure onto one little area and I don't want that little area to snag rip or whatever just because I'm overloading a smaller spot versus Distributing the weight amongst the entire yard glider so I didn't use it for a lot of the root balls that I thought I would use it for just because I mean these things are huge right this this one right here is at its highest point taller than I am well it depends on which way I hold the camera but I promise you that's taller than my hat right now that's a huge root ball absolutely huge root ball and I don't think that's the biggest one I think there's one more in here that's uh larger on its side yeah so this one right here is on its side but when it was standing up it was taller than I was taller than I am anyway I didn't want to tear it up so I didn't use it on all of the root balls one of the the downsides of burning the root balls is this right here so there's all that dirt and crap on on the actual wood itself what what is dirt in Mississippi it's Clay what happens when you put clay into a kiln basically it hardens Like a Rock so all of these bigger chunks of clay these are like art class Kil dried clay this is so so hard so every time you have a fire you have to kind of mix and push stuff around and get all this crap out of here cuz it falls off the roof balls and then clogs up the fire it's a process getting rid of these things I am going to take advantage of this complete cloud cover day jump on the tractor and drive around in circles for a couple hours [Music] n [Music] [Music] by scraping this top layer off and just piling it up elsewhere we're checking a lot of boxes number one we're filling in holes where trees used to be number two uh all of this organic matter that's left in here if it's big enough I can pull out just grabbing it I probably will I probably throw that on the burn pile just to get rid of stuff like this but number two all this other small organic matter where I'm not going to take my P time to pick that that that that that that that that that that that all those small pieces I'm not going to take my time to pick through all that so letting it sit like this over the winter will allow it to stay wet during the rainy season stay in contact with dirt and hopefully decompose pretty quick I think that all this stuff is going to break down really quick over the winter and another box that it checks is I'm essentially making a playground for my daughter she likes to come out here and climb on stuff which is great no problem at all so there's a dirt Mound for you go get dirty my daughter's a girly girl who absolutely loves to get dirty [Music] n [Music] [Music] n [Music] the concrete guy was supposed to come last Saturday and check this out and didn't do that and then uh supposed to show up this week well today's Friday and he hasn't showed up yet so the joys of being on other people's schedules uh anyway uh I need to get the concrete guy to get out here to tell me what needs to be done to this pad I've never laid concrete like this before I don't know what else needs to be done to this pad I think it needs to be leveled and I'm not sure if it needs to be expanded all the way around it but anyway I'm waiting for uh input on that from the person who's actually going to be doing the concrete work I smooth out a little bit of this around the outside of here and of course the whole clearing is scraped and that makes me smile that makes me smell pretty pretty good uh that was a long process getting it to where it is still need to clean up this but whatever at at our convenience these piles probably set it several times but I'm going to let them sit over the winter in the holes to Compact and I may spread them out I don't know be honest with you uh the pad is elevated so all the runoff water should stay away from the structure which is good there's a little bit of a swell that what that's called Swale underneath over there on that side to direct the water that way to the ditch on the driveway everything's looking good but I think I am done playing in the dirt for today I just oh correction not done playing in the dirt today I need to go over there to where the covert is in the driveway and dig out some of the ditch so here's something a little bit funny about making videos you got to Stage everything you do for the for the camera sake right so I set up the camera and the shot that I'm trying to get is driving the tractor from the clearing down the driveway towards the camera so I just set the camera and now I can drive back to where I'm starting the stage the shot and then I'm dealing with horse flies so I keep a hat with me on the tractor so I can smack the horse flies that's a distraction and as I'm driving back to actually get the shot I realized you know what there is a small little little hole or a little depression in the driveway I should really take care of so while I'm at it might as well just go ahead and box blade a little bit and then a little bit turned into a little bit more than a little bit then you forget about what you're doing and oh yeah okay go back to the very beginning and turn around so you can actually get the shot that you're trying to get which is this shot right here here's where I needed to dig out a little bit on the ditch and this isn't this isn't 100% necessary the water does get out of here but when the water starts to subside quite a bit in the ditch itself at the corner in the background it does hold a little bit of water nothing to be too concerned about cuz it's not a tremendous amount but I don't really want to have any spots in the ditch holding water if I can help it so I wanted to dig this side down just a little bit and I think honestly the covert is a little bit too high I think the covert needs to be dropped by about 6 in or so on the exit side of the cul there's plenty of elevation to where that 6-in drop should be just fine and I think that'll completely eliminate any standing water in this ditch let me show you how distracted I got so my plan was to just dig this ditch a little bit deeper just from there to there it needed to be just a little bit deeper to keep the water from or to keep the water flowing so I was throwing all the dirt up there my plan was to come back with a box blade up on top of that surface and just pull it away from the ditch just pull all that away and I went to uh go set up the camera and completely got distracted so this is where the CT comes out and this is what I'm going to call mud hole Trail this was not intentional today uh there was a kind of a well about that why there's a little bit of a a ditch that was dug by the excavator but I got to think and I was like well I don't have an excavator and if I need to clean this out it needs to be the full width of the tractor so here we go let's make it the full width of the tractor came down here with the tractor and was just pushing dirt pushing dirt pushing dirt using the bucket and the box blade pushed a little off ramp over here that way I could turn around and come in from the other way yada yada yada and here we go it's not level there's some high spots in here that'll stop water but all of this is deeper than what was originally here which is fine I'll just keep chipping away at it and getting this deeper and deeper to facilitate water leaving but it's also what I'm going to call something like the Mud Hole Trail something like that because I know after some rain this is going to be a muddy sticky mess and I've got some friends who like to Mud ride and there you go there's your Trail on the property keep tearing it up keep doing what you want to do that's fine because all this is going to do is help get water away from that Culvert and right about here what about here's the lowest spot so water will continue to come here and then it's probably not going to show up on camera but there's like a little bit of a ditch going that way so water can still go it shouldn't pool here at all here right here is a little bit of a impression coming across right here getting water that way but I thought you know what I think this is going to come out right at that first Trail we cut uh the first leg of the perimeter trail that we cut and lo and behold here we are connected the dots a little bit nice little cut through I like it this is a nice little Plateau area that would be pretty good for primitive camping once I flatten this out it's nice and elevated so you shouldn't get any uh water on the ground standing and then also it's right in the middle of all these beautiful beautiful Pines so the video I shot with the ju Fab Works Universal workmas with d-rings let's see where is it one of these oh right right there that's the vine that let's see right yeah that's the vine that I hooked to and it broke and this is the tree that had a bunch of vines in it already that I pulled a bunch of stuff down on so we come up over here like I said this was that little Plateau area elevated spot pretty good for camping I think so anyway and it connects all the way through I don't know if it's going to show up let's see if I can't get a spot right about here see that lighter colored green that's the driveway that's the light shining through on the driveway so we're not too far from it and I don't have the oh don't have the GoPro with me so sorry if this is shaky what a nice nice little Trail tell you what that box blade that's a trail maker the box blade combination with the uh or the box blade with the uh piranha bar that combination that's a nice trailmaking combination the piranha bar knocks everything over uproots the small trees and the Box blades smooth the trail behind you nice nice nice Trail right about here is where I expect it to continuously stay muddy so yeah this is one of those trails that I probably won't ever go down I not a big fan of mud but my friends are and uh hey you guys want to tear some stuff up just dig that trail deeper for me get some ruts I'll pull you out that's fine but there you go nice little Trail comes out at the Culvert I got all this cleaned up so where water should drain properly that's good it's fun to uh look through these trees every time I every time I get to this clearing I'm like oh I can see through it it's nice I took a maple tree down right here uh it wasn't that large about eight 10 12 in in diameter something like that because this is kind of a a focal point area when you come up the driveway and we've got some plans for this spot and and it does not include a maple tree so that had to go but everything's starting to take shape starting to really feel like a destination really feel like a home I think so anyway Shop's not even up yet and I'm already thinking it feels like home I love how the driveway just kind of Curves around and you got a long line of sight for people coming in and leaving I can picture Treehouse up there my daughter up there and when Papa comes to visit her up here waiting on him seeing him the whole way up anticipation building by the time they get up there ah fun stuff