Reclaiming land from Mother Nature Pics.

At first you don't notice it, but after a few years, and with expensive tractors and combines, you end up having to avoid tree limbs and such where fields are boardered by trees. At least here in CNY.( the tree with the poster has the fence wire in it) The weather here has been perfect for me on the last two weekends to reclaim some acerage. This is a 26A field surounded on 4 sides with woods. It is also unique as it lies on limestone bedrock. The rich loam is only 12" deep, max. The bottom of a plow furrow looks like a sidewalk. The length of the field runs E&W, the crevices run N&S. It's perfect alfalfa ground on a wet year, and on a dry year the crop only does well where the seems are.
Any way I have been cutting next years fire wood by cutting back all the small growth that is shading and overtaking the field. I will have a lot of small limb wood to burn next winter, but it is real good heat. Sunday, a bit after noon the wiffy came up and we had a tailgate lunch together. The Kubota B2150 Is small and agile and I can manuver between the trees to push the brush back into the woods where it will decay quickly. When done the field should be back to its original acerage by about 2 acers, A pretty good real estate deal in My mind.

the soil looks good! Dont forget to store the wood closer this year,in case you get as much snow as you had last winter lol

Winter came too soon and lasted too long this past year. I thought I had plenty of wood in my celler for this past winter, but I was wrong. I will have more there for next winter. I usually don't start cutting wood until August, but this field was bugging me and the weather on the last two weekends have been perfect. NO MUD, NO BUGS,NO RAIN, TEMP JUST RITE. I can drop the taller trees out into the field without damage to the alfalfa and the tractor clears the debrie easily without my hand carrying it off the field.
As always Loren The Acg.

Cleaned up nice, if you aint to busy later this week we have some trees closing in on the fields also.....

Always a good idea to make a trip thru there with a sub-soiler to cut the tree roots that sap the moisture..

Man, that makes ya appreciate the old boys that originally cleared the land...!!!

Ron.

Same thing here in Michigan. Firewood combined with fighting off vegetative encroachment.

Do that out here and you will meet the Snivel Liberterians.

There is more fire wood in fence rows than one
can burn through the winter on our farm. I have
offerd it free to people, all they got to do is
stack the brush off the field. That I guess is
asking too much, cause they want it deliverd to
them. I do the same thing as you, cut off
everything that is the way, trim the bigger log
trees.. Once a load is loaded of wood I park
it near the house & load another wood wagon.If
I don"t burn it then I hide the wagon through
summer & it"s already for next winter.. I have
7 wagons that are 5 wide & 8 to 10 feet long
that I"ve built for wood, Save unloading & it"s
always on wheels. A load is at least a full cord
cause it"s ranked chest high the whole was
acrost.. Works for me.......

Any tree limb that slaps James when working on a tractor gets removed and sometimes the tree with it.

If its suitable for firewood, then it gets cut up and taken to the house.

James puts the fork on the f/e loader and we stack the small stuff on the fork. Then he takes it to the nearest burn pile.

Amazing how quickly Ma Nature can take back the land.

Just a sugestion - I used to keep all my winters wood in the celler. I found thet it dried too much and burned very fast.
Now I only keep some in there with the rest outside by the celler door.
I built a large rack - holds about 6 cords, with a roof and back, just to keep the snow off.
I now burn about 15% less wood for the winter.

Some of the locals here turned some of their smaller stuff over to a tree hugger program that paid them so much a year to just let the land go. Measured and paid accordingly up front. Couple of them signed up for ten years and got a big chunk of spending money. Just before the end of the 10 years, program folks came around with satellite shots and sain the area was much smaller than claimed/paid and the folks would have to pay back the difference or leave the land in the program for free for a period of time to cover the difference.
They beat it and that particular program doesn't exist anymore.

That little tractor looks right at home doing that stuff.

Dave

Years back it was my first year with new rented ground and i got nailed with a good size limb that came off the muffler and got me pretty good across the side of the head while i was watching the plow . Everything stopped and after the stars went away i got off the tractor and got into the pick up and drove to a buddy's and borrowed his low boy outfit and a 750 John Deere dozer and set out to REMOVE anything that was even close to the edges of the fields . A week of the 750 and around 500 gallon of fuel later all tree lines and fence rows and diversion ditches and lane going into the farm were well groomed . No more bent mufflers getting slapped in the face and a two lane boulevard going into the farm with nice sloped ditches on both sides of it. If ya get the felling that i hate trees close to a field your wright. A couple days spent with a 35-40000 lb. dozer and a skilled operator can be money well spent.

That"s what I was doing the other day. Took out a whole fencerow between two fields. Gained 40-60" and got those dang mulberry roots out of the field. Those things were running 20" out in the field!! Had a BIG pile when done.

rla,

With the price of fuel soaring skyward. maybe some people won't be so dam ed choosy this year??!!

You are having way too much fun with eaquipment like that LOL.

Same thing goes on here, kinda goes with this kind of landscape, where fields are surrounded by trees or hedge rows. Does not seem that all the remaining farmers do this kind of work so much, yet it does encroach enough to make it worth doing.

Dec'08 ice storm made a real mess here, all crop land considered, the farmer I've helped on/off over the last few years, had a real job on his hands, owned land, rented and the like, 500 acres or so. I brought my saw, all other things related, + my old '64 F-600, and stayed ahead of him on his 3150 JD using it's loader, saw etc. some were easy, some not. There were tops caught in trees, mind you, in one area, the ensuing mess from above fell and I literally had to cut my way out of the tractor with the saw, nothing real heavy, just an odd arrangement of limbs, meanwhile he's on my tail with that mold board, disc behind him, boy did I earn my pay. The worst was the tangled mess, spring loaded stuff, you can't be rushed through that, just too dangerous, still some close calls. I did get a few truckloads of black cherry, maple, oak, and some box elder, out of it, just had to work like heck, clearing perimeters of this was harsh work, much prefer to do what you are doing, say with one of those limbers that Asplundh or similar has ! LOL PS, the additional acreage certainly was shown on the spray rig computer when I rode with him, he really appreciated getting this done and no delay to planting.

Your first sentence is exactly my story also, except- I was making the last pass plowing a headland. Just as I turned forward, a branch apparently came off the muffler and got me right across the bridge of the nose. It came from the left side, but also got my right eye. Lots of pain,etc. but in just a few minutes my right eye went white. It was a weekend, but we got hold of a medical office. Drove quite a ways to get there to have them tell us there was nothing they could do. Finally ended up at hospital emergency room. They explained the eye bled internally, and that clouded it over. It had stopped nicely, but on came a regimen of covering it, drugs, stillness, etc. The critical thing was after three days the scab would come off of its own accord, and if the eye started bleeding again, it was bad news. Fortunately all went well. It's just easy to think the cure was way overblown. I was on four drugs. One dilated the eye, to be used for a month straight. It was years that I noticed that eye reacting to dark/light change slower than the other one.

I've been working on that in our fields on & off the last few years as well. It's hard to get some of them and homeowners that weren't there 10 years ago make it a pain, but I've made good progress.

This past winter a neighbor of ours cleared a whole fence row of dead elm trees for us and took the wood to sell. All we gotta do is burn the brush and shred the shrubs in the fencerow with his bushhog. We just don't burn enough wood to be worth keeping it all for ourselves.

Donovan from Wisconsin

I found out the very same thing Jim....