Field Clearing

The hardest, most disagreeable job this year was clearing the west field. As I reported earlier, Markus wanted to clear the west field so that it would be easier and cheaper to brush hog it in the future. Each morning (except week-ends) we would spend 1 1/2 hours in the field. Markus would cut down the trees and Bob and I would drag the tops and small limbs to burn piles. Markus would cut the wood into appropriate sizes which would be loaded into the pickup truck and then taken to the Carriage House where we would unload and stack it. This photo shows two rows of wood (the back one stacked almost to the ceiling). We finished both these rows (which also extend out to the right about another 6' and made two more rows to the ceiling for about half the distance. Markus calculated that we cut and stacked over five cords of wood. It was really hard work (campesino labor).

This photo shows some of the brush piles from the tree house. We also worked at clearing the ditches along side the driveway where Markus had pushed a lot of downed debris. That was even worse work as it was tangled and there was old barbed wire in its midst. We needed to clear the ditches to protect the road from erosion in the rain. All of us got poison ivy from handling the debris.

The last two days we worked on thinning the grove on the rock pile in the center of the field. As the field had been cleared, rocks were piled in the center. The forester had suggested which trees to remove. Bob, Markus and I worked two hard days clearing that area and finished the day of the big burn. Markus had invited the Sands to help supervise the burn and had told the fire department what we were intending. We started at about 6 p.m. lighting the piles in the second photo which were the driest. Bob and Markus would light them with gasoline or a mixture of gasoline and used motor oil. Then we would watch them and push the unburned limbs in and go on to the next piles. The piles with green wood or hawthorn were very difficult to light, but we succeeded and burned everything by about 10 p.m. The field now is beautiful. A couple days later Tiny Sands came over with the Select Sires John Deere tractor pulling a 12' brush hog and cut the rest of the west field and our field below the pond. Bob says there is a lot of good grass hay in the west field.