What did you do today?

[Tom King]

Here are some I moved yesterday.  The Canadian Goose nest is right in the middle of the end of the point.  She was not happy with the tractor being close to her nest, but would go right back to it as soon as I headed away every time.

[Tom King]

Starting on the other corner of the tip.  Those stones are bigger than they look in the picture.  The Rip Rap on the middle had stayed there pretty good for about 10 years, but the corners were eroding pretty badly.

[Tom King]

I used my Polarized sunglasses as a filter so you can see the Rip Rap that's now under water that used to be on the shoreline.   Those are laying flat on the bottom now. Larger rocks were just moved today.

[Tom King]

I didn't want to get off the tractor with one of the really big ones in the bucket, but this will give you an idea.  Some wide angle distortion.  The tractor is not that small relative to the bucket, but it's a 7' bucket.  This rock probably weighed 800 pounds.

The road in the background is the mile long state road that runs down the middle of our place.  This is right outside the entrance to the rock quarry that's about 300 yards back into the woods, and about a half mile from our house.

I was going to take a picture of the quarry the next trip, but I got called back to the house, so done for today.

[Coop]

Tom, what’s the story of the quarry? Is abandoned and open for the pickings?

[Tom King]

Back when they were building the dam and bridges around here in 1961 and '62, they took granite out of this one.  Hard Granite is close to the top of the ground in here.

It's just a couple of miles from the dam, so I think it was just for use of building the lake.  Story goes that they hit a spring of water in it that they couldn't pump out, and just pulled out all the equipment.  It has 22' of crystal clear water in it that covers 8 tenths of an acre.   It's sort of in the middle of our land, so we own it.

There are piles of rocks all around it, grown up in woods now.  

A couple of good natural shooting ranges too in there with some cliffs as backstops.

I'll try to remember to take some pictures the next time I'm in there-maybe tomorrow.

[Coop]

I was wondering how you were able to snitch rocks and cut trees without someone questioning or shooting you! 

[Tom King]

I only took three more rocks this afternoon, but also found two perfect stones for the fire pit.

We have about a mile and a half of car drivable paths that started out as a Horse Eventing cross country course, but the jumps all rotted away long ago.   Mostly used by golf carts, side by sides, dirt bikes, and some horses.

[Tom King]

Off of that there are a number of walking trails that total something over six miles.  I didn't take any pictures of those other than this one that goes through the quarry.

 

[Tom King]

Here are some I took looking around the water hole.  It's not so pretty now with a lot of pollen on the surface, but that won't last long.  There is about a flat 3/4 acre on the side where the tractor is, and a 25' tall cliff on two opposite sides.  The other side tapered down into the hole where they used to drive trucks in and out of the hole to get the rocks to carry to a crusher.  People jump off of that rock to the right in the first picture.  The water is 22' deep straight down.

The water surface area covers 8 tenths of an acre.

 

[BillyJack]

Planning out my wood fence on each side of the house. Tomorrow is time dig for land mines ..

 

[legenddc]

Tom that water hole looks pretty amazing!

Took the kids yesterday to their first Nationals baseball game. They had about the best first experience you could have. Had some decent seats and then ended up moving a few rows back close to home plate. They each got a game-used ball, ended up on the jumbotron and saw a close game where the Nats actually won.

In other news, 4 days a week are now taken up by baseball/softball so shop time has been non-existent. I'm hoping to get some time this Sunday to finish getting it together so I can one day use it again to make something.

[BillyJack]

Safe....

 

[Tom King]

I moved a few more rocks today, and the goose didn't even get off of her nest.  I almost have enough in place that it will stop any further erosion until I can have more time to make it look better with a few loads of Rip Rap.  It was blowing 14 today, so waves large enough to see that they were being stopped.

There was a good case study in Quantum Physics as one 1,000 pound stone rolled about 10 feet out.  Waves hit it and reformed around it like it wasn't there.  I dropped it from as high as I could pick it up onto an old stump right on the edge.  It did break the stump up, but rolled too far out.  I'll get it back with a chain after the water warms up.

[wtnhighlander]

@BillyJack, how are you digging such clean post holes???

[BillyJack]

Shovel and post hole digger..

[Tom King]

I remember when I was a small boy that I dug a hole with hole diggers behind our house as deep as I could go.  I think there were about 4" of handles sticking out the top of the hole when I finished.  My Dad was both impressed, and unimpressed.

[BonPacific]

I remember a lot of bruised knuckled from childhood post-hole digging. Eventually my dad and I replaced one of the handles with a bent sapling trunk that was just the right size and added a nice curve that kept your knuckles far enough apart without reducing the maximum depth more than a few inches.

[Tom King]

Went to move a few more loads of rocks today, and had a flat tire.  It could have been deep in the woods, or left me in the road with a loaded bucket, but it happened right out in front of the mechanic shop on the road.  I drove it in with the rim crushing the tire to where I could take it off with an impact gun.

I had been taking the front tires on that tractor for granted.  The 1979 tractor was well used when I bought it in 1991, and I had never changed the front tires.  I called my tire place and ordered two.  Supposed to be there at 10 in the morning, so I shouldn't lose much work with it.

It was with a load of smaller rocks to fill in behind one of the big ones.  I picked the front tires up with the loader, and put a big jack stand under the axle to take the tire off, and to put it back on, so it's really not much trouble at all, other than the trip to the tire store tomorrow.  The white thing under the right side of the front axle is the jack stand.  I only have one of those big jack stands.  I'll have to use cribbing blocks on the other side, but left that for tomorrow.

 

[Mark J]

Tom, are you able to scoop up the rocks, or do you have lever/roll them into the bucket?

[Tom King]

I scooped those up.  That's why there is a lot of small stuff in the bucket too. 

For the larger ones, there has to be a backstop, like larger rocks, to push against to get the bucket edge under it, and to not tip back out when I roll the bucket up from a level bottom.

I have had to pull some out of piles with a chain, but all rock handling is done from the tractor seat.

It's a 70hp tractor with 2500 lb. lift capacity.  There is a 2700 lb. rotary cutter on the back of it, and 55 gallons of fluid in each rear tire.

I forget when I replaced the rear tires, but I never replaced the front ones.

[JohnG]

A bit more than my 26hp tractor with about 1,000lb lift capacity (in addition to the weight of the bucket/forks). I think my 5’ rotary mower is only 550lb. 

I have a few times exceeded my weight capacity, but otherwise have been happy with the size of my tractor for what I typically do.

 

[Tom King]

First I have to clear a swath on the other side of the path for enough room to back the 7' cutter.  It has a sprayer hanging off the back of it, so I don't want to damage it.  I can push over 4" trees, roots and all, and push them out of the way.

Then I drag out some small rocks that were under, and mixed in with some bigger rocks that I have moved, line them up, and with big rocks for a backstop, scoop up a bucket full.

I'm just going to get two or three buckets a day.  It's hard work on the tractor, and I don't want to overheat it.

They were only able to get one tire today, so I changed that one, and am pushing my luck with the other front tire.

I took the hood off the tractor back when I was working on it a couple of years ago, left it off to fix all the leaks, and never got around to putting it back on yet.  First things first.

 

[Ronn W]

Today finished wood tote box for transporting my layout tools and started box for my sharpening stones and guide.  Already made one for my chisels.  Heading to Marc Adams school for a major class in July and my "tool to take" list is pretty lengthy.  I'm too cheap to buy expensive totes that I won't use very often.

[JohnG]

We planted our vegetable garden today, or at least most of it. We still have toughly 10’x10’ that we haven’t decided what to plant, might end up being flowers. The soil (clay) was still clumpy and sticky from yesterday’s rain, so I’ll be sore tomorrow from making all the mounds and rows. I started looking into greenhouses to extend our growing season into this fall/winter.

Also finally got around to setting up my 12v pump to water the garden from 55gal barrels/ibc totes since we don’t have running water near it.