Couple of small jobs today that would have probably taken a good bit longer but for the Piranha toothbar and hydraulic top/tilt on the 3 point.
Leveled off a little spot for a ground blind. Started with the box scrape but it was hitting roots longways and just wanted to slide down them without digging in. The Pirahna sliced through the roots and dry clay like a cold knife through cold butter. Took some pressure but made a crisp, clean cut roots and all.
Toward the middle of the sewer line, which we mow a couple times a year and use as a de facto trail, we have this mildly irritating short stretch that’s maybe 60 or 70 feet long. You have to cross the slope sideways, which is no problem if it’s dry. If it’s wet, the Mule crab walks it in 4WD so best to hit that spot going about 20 to 25 mph so by the time you’ve slid halfway down the slope your past the steepest part. Only reasons to go through it with the tractor is to mow it, which would only be when sufficiently dry, or to recover a deer, in which case I’ll just crab the tractor through it same as the Mule, albeit a bit slower, and to heck with tearing up the hill. Bottom of the slope is a creek just past a briar patch and about 40’ strip of trees; top of the slope… maybe we’ll have a road up there someday but that’s a bigger long term project. Today it was dry as dust, I was there, the tractor was there with box scrape and loader, so I decided to take a flyer on flattening out a dirt path through the slopiest of the slope. Some dude working on the sewer tore the area all to pieces earlier this year sliding all over it with a CTL. I had already smoothed up that damage about a month ago but it was a bit too wet to do something this controlled then as there was a bit too much spinning and sliding in the wet.
Anyway, I’d never tried to use a box blade on an area covered in grass and weeds. Blade cut the grass nicely… for about 4’; at which point it plugged up with a ball of grass. I’m pretty dumb so I had to do that three times in a row before diverting to the Plan B I didn’t have. Disc harrow came to mind first, but that’s behind about 50 big heavy things in the shed and the Pirahna was riding around on the front of the tractor relaxing after it’s earlier 30 seconds in the spotlight. With one small exception attributable to operator error, was able to surgically shave off the grass/native fauna and relocate it to a nearby hole. Underlying clay was so hard, actually used the rippers for the first couple passes after the grass was gone. I’m reasonably confident I’ll be touching this up every few rains for a bit until it stabilizes. Will keep an eye on how/if it washes and may put a ditch on the uphill side if needed. But there’s also a decent chance I nicked a Sweet Gum root in there somewhere. If I did, I’ll have it stabilized by at least 4,572 tiny Sweet Gum saplings by lunchtime tomorrow.
Top/tilt earned its keep on this one, particularly tilt. Only had to adjust it about 24 times. But it was easy: just start the run with the tractor listing off to X degrees, tilt the blade until it looks level, proceed forward while keeping the blade level as the angle of the slope changes, flatten and raise slightly to disperse dirt toward the end of the pass. Repeat until it’s an acceptable pig path fit for a Kawasaki Mule and/or a small tractor. Turning a turnbuckle would have been a quite slow process (BTDT).
Had to cross both creeks to get to the sewer line, so cleaned up those crossings a little on the way by.
