Another large excavation project clearing our acreage. Pics!

[ebinmaine 80,546]

Starting 7 or 9 years ago and averaging every couple, we've had a portion of the acreage fairly close to the house cleared of tree stumps and rocks, then flattened out. 

We began by adding a second driveway which forms a half circle off the larger older one. 

Then we had the garden area created. 

The entire area of the now 4 year old barn was built. 

Then another expansion off to the left of the garden. 

 

This year we began felling trees off to the right side of the house building knowing we wanted to get the excavator back and have him do the same treatment as the whole garden space. 

Rip out and pile up stumps, trees, rocks, etc. 

Reorganize. Recontour. Bury some. Stack some. Flatten some...

Repeat.  

 

This is the closest I could get to a before n after.  

 

 

This is taken after 3 loads (14 or 18 cubic yards) were brought in to raise the area.  

 

This is almost the final product.  

 

 

 

This new flat spot will be the home of the camper house (carport ish) metal building.  

 

Couple more in progress pics. 

 

 

 

There's now a small ramp off the back right corner that a tractor would fit down. 

This'll give us access to the whole right side of the house for future wood processing. Also gives us a full tractor driveable path all the way around the house once the ground dries out.  

 

Another big part of this year's work was creating a nice wide long flat spot behind and below the barn. This'll be specifically for tractors, tractor storage, parts, machinery,  etc.  

The intention is to move the 13 x 20 portable garage down from barn level to the new lower space. Also build another portable garage with the frame we got from my mom. 12 x 20 I believe? 

Both of those will eventually be covered with corogated type metal roofing like the barn and house already have. 

He had to lay over several trees and do a LOT of material movement for this. 

 

Here's a few odd angled pics of the area. I'll try to get a better view later. 

 

 

From the house deck. 

 

From the left side. For scale, that shed is 20 feet long but at a distant view. 

 

From below and behind. The portable garage by the barn is the 13 x 20. 

 

Another side view. 

 

 

 

We've been considering having a 4WD/ AWD vehicle usable path cut through the forest over past the barn for several years. Really since we got the garden area created and had need for moving materials down there. We'll still be adding size to that and of course adding loam and manure every year so we got the cut done this time.  He felled a bunch of small to medium trees to clear the spot. 

 

The operator then used a portion of the old ramp, along with a large amount of material from a hole he dug, along with a full truckload of 1.5 inch max crushed stone, to rebuild the ramp for us. 

 

I find it extremely interesting that a professional excavator can look at our property and just KNOW where to dig for certain things. Yesterday he pointed to a spot and said, "I bet I can get gravel there."

I reminded him about the rocks and ledge and he showed me a mound. A friggin mound. Somehow he knew that was not rocks but a place to harvest gravel. 

 

Here's that hole about half done. 

 

Several shots of the new ramp down to the forest, in various phases. 

 

 

 

Following the curve to the left here, it faces the garden area at the bottom.  

 

 

 

The last portion of the work was rebuilding some drainage and redirection of water flow to improve towards the frog pond and then to the forest. 

 

This is facing up towards the road on the far right of the house. 

 

 

 

 

The mo-chine. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ebinmaine 80,546]

Here's a passel o' pics from Trina. 

 

Good straight on view of the new camper house spot. 

 

Several angles of same. 

 

 

 

This is the ramp off the back side. 

 

 

This is a good straight view of the flat spot behind the barn. 

 

Here's where the new vehicle usable path will eventually continue down the hill, to the left of the hemlock tree, and bend right, towards the garden. 

 

We will likely need a culvert just past the tree. There are other pics showing the V shaped water course. 

 

 

The rest are various views of the project from different viewpoints. 

 

 

 

 

[ebinmaine 80,546]

Video from Trina 

 

 

 

[c100rider 161]

That is all very impressive. Cant wait to see it next year.

[953 nut 69,033]

Did you get to play with the big yellow Tonka Toyz?

[ebinmaine 80,546]

4 minutes ago, 953 nut said:

Did you get to play with the big yellow Tonka Toyz?

 

Nope. We asked!!!   But.... nope.   

[8ntruck 9,271]

What kind of fill material did you have brought in?  The truck in the picture looks like a 25 ton truck.  Got maybe 75 to a 100 tons?

[ebinmaine 80,546]

2 minutes ago, 8ntruck said:

What kind of fill material did you have brought in?  The truck in the picture looks like a 25 ton truck. 

 

That's about right. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, 8ntruck said:

Got maybe 75 to a 100 tons?

 

Here in Maine we buy aggregate by the cubic yard. That being a tri axle truck it's likely an 18 cu yd load.  That's the max (by weight) legal on most 4 axle trucks here.  

 

If it's standard bank run gravel it'll weight out at 100 - 110 lbs per cubic foot. 

Somewhere around 48K to 51K + lbs of material.  

 

75 ish ton there and another 25 ish for the new vehicle ramp. 

 

 

[WHX?? 58,041]

Looks to me like your tired of living on a hill. Ask me how I know. Someday yer gonna finger out $h1T runs downhill. 

[ebinmaine 80,546]

3 minutes ago, WHX?? said:

Looks to me like your tired of living on a hill. 

 

Nope. Mountain life is the best.  Just gotta make adaptations.  

[SylvanLakeWH 32,419]

Only one question:

 

You telling me BBT couldn't handle that with the  fleet??? 
 

Couple hours tops... 

 

 

[WHX?? 58,041]

8 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

Mountain life is the best

Hard to disagree with that but if I tallied up what I spent on truck loads of fill for 40 years I coulda bought a nice flat spot in the country and really put up some out buildings. Did I mention I come from a long line of builders and trying to find a flat spot to build on here is like the man who went crazy in a silo ...  couldn't find a corner to crap in. 

Worst part is the flat ground I did have I put in evergreens and can't bring myself to cut them down. Nobody told me years ago they were gonna grow and become a nice woods. 

[c-series don 12,416]

After spending many thousands of hours operating heavy equipment in my lifetime I must say that guy did a nice job grading with that excavator. Looks like now you’re ready for some serious mid-mount grader blade action!! 

[MainelyWheelhorse 3,109]

Cool, at this rate, you might want to start looking for a good sized mowing deck @ebinmaine. You might need it.

[Beap52 2,467]

When we had the farm cleared of undesirable brush and trees.  Watching the trackhoe operator was fascinating.  He could be moving the machine, swinging the bucket and begin digging at the same time. 

 

[JoeM 10,238]

We carved a place in the hill 25 plus years ago. Amazing how a good operator just looks and then sees potential issues. We had a 4' diameter white oak stump, (tree got stuck by lightning and split), right in the middle. 

The guy ask, "what are your plans for the extra dirt and root ball" He said that root is going to be huge. The neighbor let me toss it into a ravine on his place. We had a medium size dozer with a bucket and it could not pick it up he had to drag it. I thought we could just spread out the dirt but nope, way to much, covered the root ball and made a spot for the other neighbor to park during winter cause the driveway was steep and he was to cheap to get a 4x4.(liked walking up the hill in ankle deep snow a lot) 

Our biggest issue with the hill was diverting run off, It can be tricky and not always looks the way you think it is going to work. If you get a couple inches of rain in an afternoon that really adds up. That transit can be your friend. 

[ebinmaine 80,546]

8 hours ago, MainelyWheelhorse said:

Cool, at this rate, you might want to start looking for a good sized mowing deck @ebinmaine. You might need it.

 

Maybe?   We already have a couple here and we've tried them out back and they were definitely not successful for us.

 

Some sort of bush hog set up might be in our future though.

[ebinmaine 80,546]

7 hours ago, Beap52 said:

When we had the farm cleared of undesirable brush and trees.  Watching the trackhoe operator was fascinating.  He could be moving the machine, swinging the bucket and begin digging at the same time. 

 

 

Absolutely agreed. A good excavator operator can use that giant arm as an extension of their own.

As a crane operator and a person who appreciates larger machinery in general, watching this guy work is always extremely impressive.

[ebinmaine 80,546]

3 hours ago, JoeM said:

Our biggest issue with the hill was diverting run off, It can be tricky and not always looks the way you think it is going to work. If you get a couple inches of rain in an afternoon that really adds up. That transit can be your friend. 

 

Water runoff and melting snow is obviously a lesson we have been learning quite well over the years. You can guess where most of it is going to go.

Where you guessed wrong, rethink the path and reinforce as necessary.