Son...Of...A...Bitch

[Mister Sin]

i swear I can't win for shit. My mother in law recently gave me and my wife 10 acres to live on. It's about 3 acres cleared, 1/3 Acre pond about 3-4 acres horse pasture and the rest wooded. It's a pretty nice spread. The part that sucks, my father in law died last year was sick for a good 2 years before that where he couldn't do yard work. And leading up to that, he didn't do the fine trim work. So to say there are a lot of challenges ahead is a fucking understatement. The pond is 100% dead, covered with duckweed. The lower lower 1.5 acre pasture had grown up now for about 5 years since the horse who was kept there died...talk about overgrowth. Grass/weed mixture is easily 4' tall. It is full of thorns and snakes and an endless amount of god damn maple tree saplings. This project has started with my chainsaw breaking, then last week my lawn tractor broke its sector gear plate(this allows the damn wheels to turn) so I fix the chainsaw, and I grounded off the broken teeth on the plate, welded new ones on and ground them down to save $100 pm the part. Then today I'm in this bastard of a field for 10 hours...I'm gonna say it again...10 damn hours...I get to the 4th quarter. I have less than a half hour of cutting the heavy thick crap then I'll only have a couple hours of fine tuning. Basically just running over the field a bunch until all the stuff that made it thru the blades gets cut. I get so damn close and "snap"....the damn PTO belt breaks. And the kicker, the hardware store closes at 6 and I'm to far away to make it. Tomorrow I planned on going along the road side pasture fence where the horses are and cleaning up the fence line.(a lot of maple and cedar growth in the barbed wire. But now I'll have to wake up extra early just to get to the store, get and change a belt, finish the few hours of work in the lower pasture and start way behind on the front pasture.....I know it's a lot. But I had to vent.

 

[RaminExile]

Sounds fun man! I love challenges like that. There's nothing like taking hold of nature by its balls and bending it to your will slowly and with great effort. When you get it to where you want to
(and that will be a long time - because each time you do get something done you'll go....well this could be a bit better....(if you're anything like me!)). Just keep working. Its the only way.

 

[Mister Sin]

yea I've already done so much, it looks so great compared to what it was. My stupid fucking brother in law showed up a couple years ago and decided he was gonna make a still in the woods. He's to retarded to do and just left the shit laying to rust. So I had to haul all kinds of rusty scrap metal out and get that all cleared up. I've put in countless hours and it's so rewarding to see the results.

 

[RAMSinLA]

Goats....made my life easy.

 

[Legatron4]

Damn dude. What a job. My dad owns about 10 acres of woods and refuses to do anything with it. He hunts there about twice a year but it could be way fucking cooler. Like, put a campsite on it for the family or something. He could rent it out to other people but he has no interest in that. Anyway, that really sucks man. Hope it gets better.

 

[Mister Sin]

Yea it's good huntin, that's a plus. In the middle of the woods I'm working on making a clearing by creek that I can build a fire pit and the family can enjoy a nice time under the canopy of the trees and just enjoy the nature. I ran over a couple copperheads today. That was kinda scary. I have an 8-9' Black snake that lives right at the wood line amongst some pine timbers. I've purposely let him live and have left his home alone so that he keeps the copperheads in check. If he doesn't kick it into gear I'm gonna be evicting his ass, with a prejudice.

 

[-X-]

That blows when stuff like that happens. I remember renting a pressure cleaner years ago so I could pressure clean my mom's spanish-tile roof, and I only rented it for the day because it was a 2500 sq ft house and I had done plenty of roofs in the neighborhood in less than a day too. That's how I made my side cash back in the day. I started in the back (where nobody could see it), got to the pitch, did the sides, and was closing in on finishing the front when the friggin thing seized up on me. I was left with a pristine looking roof and a patch of about 100 sq ft right in the front that I couldn't finish. Took the hunk of shit back and they couldn't fix it and all the others were rented for the week. That bothered the hell out of me for several days, because it was so obvious looking. Nice clean terracotta roof with a black patch right in the front.

 

[CodeMonkey]

That blows when stuff like that happens. I remember renting a pressure cleaner years ago so I could pressure clean my mom's spanish-tile roof, and I only rented it for the day because it was a 2500 sq ft house and I had done plenty of roofs in the neighborhood in less than a day too. That's how I made my side cash back in the day. I started in the back (where nobody could see it), got to the pitch, didNice clean terracotta roof with a black patch right in the front.

Did it look like this?

 

[-X-]

More or less ... yeah.

 

[Ramhusker]

BLEACH, X, BLEACH! And Jug, like RAMSinLA said, Goats. Of course, fire is your friend when clearing land.

 

[Mister Sin]

Well just another hurdle, today I have some sort of stomach bug and keep hurling if I even drink water. Fml

 

[Yamahopper]

Well just another hurdle, today I have some sort of stomach bug and keep hurling if I even drink water. Fml

Sorry about That..
As a guy that owns a 280 acre farm I have some experience and I feel your pain. I might have a tip or two for you. But that's up to you.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Should have taken some before and after pictures. If nothing else you'll get a ton of great exercise.

 

[Mister Sin]

@Yamahopper I always have open ears to tips

 

[Mister Sin]

Yea @bluecoconuts im getting plenty of that, I also have a pretty bitchin tan. About the pics, I keep thinking that after I've already started a project

 

[Yamahopper]

@Yamahopper I always have open ears to tips

1st thing is Dude don't kill yourself trying to fix everything at once. Relax and enjoy it. Make a plan.

You can't beat nature, nature wins the Super Bowl every year. It's Relentless. When you think you're getting ahead of it one place it's getting over on you somewhere else.
It's like fighting a war, establish a base and attack one spot till you win then move on to the next. Establish whats going to be yard and what's going to be field. You can mow a pasture field a 100 times and it's still not a grass yard. You have to disc it, rake and plant grass seed then it becomes a green paradise with weeds that you can not ever get rid of.
10 acres is a rich mans yard not a farm. It cost lots to make it into a yard. Don't till you have the equipment to do it.

4 acres is a lot of pasture to mow without a decent sized brush hog. But for that you need a decent sized tractor, like one of those old blue Fords you see everywhere. I have one. Run forever, easy to work on and can find parts and attachments cheap.

Better yet get to know your neighbors. One of them might want to cut hay off your fields. he might get 20 round bales a cutting and maybe 3 cuttings a year. He keeps the fields cut and he might put a few bucks in your pocket for the hay. If he doesn't you still got fields cut. I used to do that on several smaller farms for people. A farming reach around basically.

Get some aquatic weedkiller for your pond. Then re stock it with fish.
Be careful with your trees, you won't live long enough to ever see it grow back.
Horses? NO. Freak NO. lost 10k on them.
You have enough to get a cow! But you have to feed that cow all winter. You know how much a cow eats?
Goats, sure.
chickens are okay and maybe the best option. Bonus is coyote's come in at night and you can shoot them.

Weedkiller is your friend. Don't buy Round up. It's a waste of $$. You can buy 2.5 gallons of Glyphosate at a farm store for 40$ and mix about 200 gallons of weedkiller out of it. That's what round up is.

I no longer live on my farm. I moved in town a couple years ago. I sold the house and 12 acres to a young hipster couple who had delusions of grandeur of having a herd of cattle, horses and growing crops . On 12 acres that's half woods no less. I had a talk with them. They can't even keep it mowed.

I don't farm myself hardly at all anymore. have 120 acres in what we call set aside. That means the Gov, give me $$$$ for letting it sit fallow.
The rest a neighbor plants corn on. He pays me rental per acreage and I get a cut out of the harvest. When I retire in a few years I night go back to farming at some level.

 

[DaveFan'51]

i swear I can't win for crap. My mother in law recently gave me and my wife 10 acres to live on. It's about 3 acres cleared, 1/3 Acre pond about 3-4 acres horse pasture and the rest wooded. It's a pretty nice spread. The part that sucks, my father in law died last year was sick for a good 2 years before that where he couldn't do yard work. And leading up to that, he didn't do the fine trim work. So to say there are a lot of challenges ahead is a freaking understatement. The pond is 100% dead, covered with duckweed. The lower lower 1.5 acre pasture had grown up now for about 5 years since the horse who was kept there died...talk about overgrowth. Grass/weed mixture is easily 4' tall. It is full of thorns and snakes and an endless amount of god damn maple tree saplings. This project has started with my chainsaw breaking, then last week my lawn tractor broke its sector gear plate(this allows the damn wheels to turn) so I fix the chainsaw, and I grounded off the broken teeth on the plate, welded new ones on and ground them down to save $100 pm the part. Then today I'm in this bastard of a field for 10 hours...I'm gonna say it again...10 damn hours...I get to the 4th quarter. I have less than a half hour of cutting the heavy thick crap then I'll only have a couple hours of fine tuning. Basically just running over the field a bunch until all the stuff that made it thru the blades gets cut. I get so damn close and "snap"....the damn PTO belt breaks. And the kicker, the hardware store closes at 6 and I'm to far away to make it. Tomorrow I planned on going along the road side pasture fence where the horses are and cleaning up the fence line.(a lot of maple and cedar growth in the barbed wire. But now I'll have to wake up extra early just to get to the store, get and change a belt, finish the few hours of work in the lower pasture and start way behind on the front pasture.....I know it's a lot. But I had to vent.[/QUOTE
The Old Quote "Shit Happens!!" But As I said, after getting out of Marine Corps "Boot Camp" "Could have been tougher!" This will just PROVE what kind of Man you are!! JMHO

 

[RamFan503]

Goats....made my life easy.

Exactly what I was going to suggest. I was going to post, "One word - GOATS" That's nature's Weedeater right there. And they're funny little fuckers.

 

[RAMSinLA]

Exactly what I was going to suggest. I was going to post, "One word - GOATS" That's nature's Weedeater right there. And they're funny little fuckers.

They are funny to watch...I have one that likes to ram his head into stuff like walls or a fence post or my wife's new car...:eek:

 

[cracengl]

I know the feeling man. I live on almost 12 acres. About 3 of that is the yard area my house sits on. I just spent all weekend trim mowing around the 50 Murray cypress tress I planted down one property line and burying the underground fence wire for my dog for the 3rd time. 1st time I got a break and couldn't find it, so I reburied with smaller gauge wire. Then I had to pull part of that up because I had a bunch of stumps cut out after I cut a bunch of trees and had to have my back yard regraded because it held water so bad. I started out with a riding mower my wife's grandfather gave me that barely made it to my house let alone cut anything. I bought a different used one and it broke something on the deck pretty much every other time I mowed. So then I have my new rider that is pretty good. Long story short, I've given up on wanting to get everything done in one season. I've had to learn to just go with what I can get done and let the rest wait for another day. But in 3 years, the way my yard looks now compared to what it started out as is like night and day. I see a ton of other things to do, but most people think it looks fine. So just keep at it man. You'll get it.