The back 35

[Meadowlark]

Fitting the title of this section, I'm expanding Meadowlark Ranch taking in 35 acres of recently mostly clear cut land with some timber still standing. The property goes from where the picture is taken north to the timber line. If you look closely you can see my old Case dozer where I've started piling up tree debris to burn as part of the clearing process...a process which can easily take me through the next two years if we (my dozer and me) both last that long.




The view looking to the right of the above photo.

 

[Tetters]

Cor. that's a lovely lot of land. My bit is only about 4 acres. I think that if I had managed as many as 35, I would have used most of it as camping areas, as that would have made better wages with relatively less work. As it is, the majority of the work has been in growing ornamentals, as well as lots of hedging, creating lots of burns during the winter months. As I have mostly worked single handed for the past twenty odd years, I couldn't manage more than that. Keeping the grass nice, and seeing to people has taken too much time.
Things have now become slightly easier, as long as Zigs follows instructions from time to time

 

[Meadowlark]

Since starting this project in early July, I've completed raking up the debris and hurricane downed trees on about 3/4 of the property. Progress has been stopped now due to a machine failure in the dozer that is beyond my knowledge to fix. It actually comes at a time I need to attend to getting the fall garden started so I'll switch over to that activity while waiting to get my dozer going again.

I'll also be burning much of the piles of debris on the new property if the forecast rain comes this week making it safe to burn again. It is amazing how much debris is just left behind and rotting but as we know that is all good stuff for the soils.

 

[Mike]

Geeze! That's a LOT of downed trees and debris! What are you going to be doing with this piece of land once you get it all cleared? Expanding the garden?

 

[Meadowlark]

Geeze! That's a LOT of downed trees and debris! What are you going to be doing with this piece of land once you get it all cleared? Expanding the garden?

LOL, oh no the garden is already large enough.

Those timber sellers leave everything but the logs themselves, then the hurricane blew down many small trees left behind that kind of depended on the big trees for protection.

Possibilities: 1) I may gift it in 10 acre tracts to some special relatives...or 2) sell it in 10+ acre tracts to the highest bidder. 3) Another possibility that I have contemplated is selling Meadowlark Ranch and building a new house on the 35 and living there.

Time will tell.

 

[YumYum]

due to a machine failure in the dozer that is beyond my knowledge to fix

What's wrong with it?

 

[Meadowlark]

Like me, it's old. Lots of hydraulic oil leaks. But the show stopper currently is a strong diesel fuel leak coming from around an injector located over the exhaust manifold. It is in a very difficult spot to reach or even see.

The fuel leak seems to persist whether the engine is running or not so yesterday I parked it up hill hoping it can't defy gravity. It is a good thing that diesel is much lower volatility than gasoline or it would have already burned to the ground. Great machines but they do have their issues.