Clearing out swamp land on the farm during a wet rainy week

[Music] with a piece in my hand the shot as I walk to the water for a last goodbye he begs kicks right so he said when he healed on the keys all over our head I live in that grip and now he'll learn at the end with the tables turn forgive me seeing me good morning you guys what a beautiful day I'm gonna actually take you to the place where I grew up and we got a lot of work to do and some of it not gonna be so glamorous this is the farm I grew up on now nobody lives here but we still raise cattle and pigs on the farm it's not the most glamorous place but I'll tell you straight up I wouldn't trade growing up here for anywhere on the world we've got the lean-to is where we actually have the cows come in and we've got a test sorry guys I'm I'm laughing not a lot of people put crap like that up on their friends post but we do so we got to come in here clean all this out come on dog come on come on you coming you don't want to get in here you know the cows are in here smart we got a white-faced bowl we got to watch out for you might be a bit cranky with the hound dog so we're gonna come in here and clean all this out that's good stuff it's actually compost but this is the area that I want to get at down here because we haven't had access to this and forever and it leads right out to the pond so this is a pretty low-lying area all of that see that hill there and there I want to move that up and out from down there because we used to have a nice access road going through there so that we could get around the pond not so much anymore but once we clean that up we'll be able to get at it all so I got fence to move it looks like and I'm gonna this is gonna get wet this is gonna get this is gonna get bad I have a feeling no food today pigs well I don't have it cows are coming up get out of here get get dog knows better get you're not the bull are you get out of here boys coming she been chased once here five times you want you don't want him going that ya get nope get get it nope that's the two stupid ones that came up in the first place all right I'm gonna chase them up yeah you chase them around that's all it's weed so fun growing up on the farm with allergies get get get the first thing we got to do before any work can begin is get rid of those fence panels they are sectional meaning that they will come apart in pieces and they don't actually have footings but they might as well have footings because with the cows brushing up against them and the weeds growing over them they're almost impossible to get out they're really stuck but after we get those out then we can really start operating the equipment and getting some barnyard cleaned up question for you guys you guys got itch weed right there we call it itch weed it's not poison ivy I don't know what the real name of it is it grows like weeds everywhere in Minnesota and I just got it all over my legs so after we've got a couple section of those fence panels gone we can actually get down into the lower barnyard and start grading it out and removing the weeds so that we can get at the rest of the sections of the fence panel a little bit easier now we do have an ultimate goal with this thing and that's just to turn this barnyard back into usable space it's just been neglected for far too long but this is going to be a much bigger job than what I initially thought now you guys are gonna hear that hound dog of mine Belair and in the background every now and then and I apologize for that but I can't take this away from her she absolutely loves being on the farm see normally we live in the city and she's got to be stuck on a rope she can't run free but when we get up to the farm there's nothing holding her back she's off the collar off the leash she gets to run and play and this is dog heaven to her and I just can't take that away from her so apologize guys that you're gonna hear her barking but for her this is this is the times that she'll remember [Music] so I my initial thoughts are I've got to be able to see what I'm working with I don't know what's going on on the farm in the last 10 years since I stopped and well actually been a lot longer since I stopped cleaning it up we used to clean this area out with wheelbarrows and pitchforks and ever since us kids left the farm well they just basically got overrun so I want to restrict them basically the top layer off just to see what's underneath there I don't know if there's logs concrete blocks I honestly have no clue what's down there so after I get this stripped off then I can start grading and then I'm also gonna have to take everything that I stripped off and move that further away but I would just want to work in one area at a time so that's what we're doing is starting with the lower barnyard just trying to get that area clean [Music] so this hill that you see right here that I'm climbing is actually not dirt it's not soil it's manure it's about 20 years of manure that's been stockpiled right outside the door of the barn and at this point what I'm going to do is continue to clean the lower barnyard before I start to tackle this mountain of manure which I've still got to move and grade because the weight where they placed it is just totally in the way it makes the pasture completely unusable so I've got to move that again but first I've got to see what I'm working with down below all right yeah out of here Lucy we have the biggest grubs up there that I've ever seen I think there have got to be at least the size of my thumb I don't know what kind of bun they do turn into but man I they're just monsters the most satisfying part about this is just knowing that I'm taking those weeds those weeds are there like the devil's we you touch them get them on your skin and it feels like you just think just sting and burn so it's really satisfying to know that I'm taking out vast quantities of these things all at once thank goodness the cab of this ASB is airtight because otherwise right about now my legs would be swelling shut as this stuff breaks up and goes into so I'm guessing you guys can imagine just how soft this ground is just by looking at the proximity of the water table in relation to the barn there isn't a whole lot of elevation change meaning that I'm basically floating at this point just above ground so if I try to get in here with our old farm tractor and do this I would have been stuck I mean the job just can't be done and that's why the job was never actually done is because we didn't have any piece of equipment that could get in here and do what had to be done long story short so the mountain of manure that you see coming up will be the that we tack open at this point I just kind of get the lower bar here and scraped and cleaned out and get the water so that it drains from the bar down into that pond right next to it [Music] thankfully I've got this ASB with this track system if I trying to get in here same job with one of my other skid loaders with tires there's I just couldn't have done it even if I tried to use one of my other tracks get loaders I have a skid loader that has a dedicated set of tracks and I have steel tracks and my other motors I couldn't have been able to flow you can see where I'm able to actually just not only back drag but I'm not creating big ruts or swishing this down if I got out of this cab right now and tried to walk on this ground I would sink up to my knees and my food now I'm not trying to remove any material I'm just we've got an awesome laptop the ground flat topping the ground is a lot like making it rain ready when you're out on an excavation site and then just things making everything as smooth as possible when you leave ground jagged and uneven it just creates areas for water to pool and cooled water makes mud well in this case makes wet newer so what I want to do is when I want to make everything just slick so when the rains hit they just go right off and down into the pond but I've got a little bit of work to do to make that happen [Music] Oh [Music] now as I'm stripping off the vegetation i'ma neva tably losing material that I don't want to lose I can't afford to drop this grade down too far because then the pond instead of staying where it's at will slowly creep forward toward the barn so what I'm doing is I'm stripping off the vegetation moving it up onto the hill and then grabbing a pile of sand and gravel from the top of the hill bringing it down and replacing the material that I removed it out of there that way I can keep my elevation set without dropping it the great and just so we're all on the same page this hill I'm climbing is again not mud this is manure and there is there's a sling slipper then blank because this stuff when it gets wet and it was raining earlier today is just so slick all right so now we've got a nice ramp so when the cows walk in and out they're not falling over but we've got a long way to go we're not there yet the least we can start to finally see something and you you get out of here dogs driving me No once I get a big scoop of mud / manure up to the top of the hill oh I'm turning around and grabbing sand and gravel and what you're gonna see is there's going to be some vegetation mixed into it and I really don't care about that I'm not building a road base removing anything structuralist brawls with the barnyard so I don't mind if some of that vegetation is mixed in but I'm really looking for is just that drier material to replace from what I'm removing [Music] now once the lower barnyard is scraped off and it can start to see what's going on and I got the rough contour set I got to move on to Phase two which is tackling this mountain of manure you see this pile of manure kind of personally bugs me because where it was placed is it just you can't utilize the barn ear you can't use the pasture because the cows can't walk on it you can't get past it right Campins what I want to do is I want to knock the pile down and contour it so that you can actually use the area the manure doesn't disappear we can still harvest it and use it as topsoil for the fields but the cows can still walk on it you can still grow things on it it just makes so much more sense sorry I'm ranting but I just kind of bugged me ever since I seen it happen this one's a feisty one oh yeah that's nasty huh she bit me a couple three times but her mouths too small to do anything let's put her away where she'll be safe we're not working over here really why thank you drew that's from the smell isn't it go get a drink put onto the pond come on you owe Oh cups makes things way worse than the manure they got I know you guys know this but snakes I know you guys know this but snakes garter snakes have this musk gland and when they get scared they musky and that is nasty but look it we can now walk right down to the water oh just nasty smelling I don't know what's worse this water smell of that snake all right we still got to move that [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well for a pastor pastor I think we're pretty good certainly doesn't need to be perfect we got a nice walk in for the cows I spot for Lucy to drink get the snake nastiness out of her mouth what do you think Lucy we good all we really wanted to do was make it usable again I think we're there so we can get this graded out she's pretty muddy to do a finish grade and we got a straight and fix this fence and I got to fix this yet but that's all we got for today so you guys will see on the next video check these two out right here all the time I'll get that don't don't be lift in that what are you doing I'll do that that's kind of my job all right guys I'm gonna get on this cuz he'll just keep going unless I do it so i'ma let you guys go gob let's go get him you guys and check out these two videos right here you gotta stop here's one of my favorite stories about Uncle Tom you guys he's 78 years old and about I don't know 10 maybe 12 years ago he was in the pasture breaking a horse and Nicky and I my wife pulled up and we watched him breaking this horse and he wouldn't let me get in there to help him of course you know he's his old school as there is and he's going to do it his way well the horse it was a Mustang Buck's him off then turns around and kicks him straight in the chest and didn't really faze me at all because I mean I've seen stuff like that happen my whole life growing up I look over at my wife and her eyes were like the size of a saucer plate and she looks at Uncle Tom it says Uncle Tom you've got to stop or you're gonna have a heart attack and Uncle Tom looks at her and says you're gonna have a heart to have a heart attack I freaking love that are hey guys well I hope you've enjoyed today's video you guys tell me about your adventures I want to hear your stories where you grew up and what you were doing how you were raised this is this is going back in time for me guys I hope you enjoyed this video this video also I couldn't have done this job without the ASV just plain and simple the ASV is the only piece of equipment that I owned or I don't actually own it I lease it that I could get in here and do this job with and so I want to hear about you know your equipment and your adventures god bless you guys go get them and now check out these other two videos that I'm putting up on the screen while I'm busy out in the field trying to put this fence back together see you on the next one you guys I think it's raining