Crops and Land Clearing



Posted: Monday, August 27, 2007

by Kim Bryant
Black Oak Farm

We have been clearing our land since we bought the farm in 2003. The trees on the land were so thick, that from the road, we didn't even realize that there was a trailer on the property. We actually picked our house site without really being able to visualize the layout of the land.

Our goal is to have pasture land for cattle. So the first step was logging. We hired a logging company to come in and cut down the trees on some of the property. The worked for about 4 months and cleared at least 20 acres. Most of the wood that they cut was pine, some oak and poplar. They used heavy equipment to cut down the trees, skidders to drag the trees out of the woods, a large saw to cut the trees to a consistent size and then log trucks to transport the wood to the wood yard for sale. The sale of lumber and fire wood have been the primary revenue source for the farm to date.

Once the logging was finished, the next step was to clear the land. When loggers cut trees, the stumps are left. So we purchased a caterpillar 955 to dig the stumps out of the ground. The C955 was also used for grading the land, smoothing out areas where the stump and roots made a hole the size of a small swimming pool.

After the stumps were removed, we used our Bobcat skid-steer to move the stumps, sticks, limbs, etc. into a large pile for burning. (Burning brush is legal in our county during certain times of the day, and safe during certain times of the year. On another project we burned an acre of bamboo in the middle of town, but that's a story for another blog). The best investment we made was a grapple attachment for the Bobcat. The grapple allowed us to lift stumps that we as large as the Bobcat and slowly move them to the pile. It also turned out to be a great tool for raking sticks and other small debris into rows.

The final tool that we used for the farm was another attachment for the Bobcat, a rock-picker. This tool picks up very small pieces of debris, without dropping it on the way to it's destination.

Now, in August of 2007 we are getting ready to plant seed again to continue building the soil and nutrition for future crops and herds.  It is a long process, but we feel, well worth our time.

Kim was born in Kentucky, raised in New Jersey and has lived in Virginia since 1982. She works for a software development company in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and enjoys writing about her farm, her family and her work. And, being a mother of 3 ranging in ages from 4-21, Kim enjoys many different perspectives on life. http://www.trainingforce.com
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