FIRE! & of course land clearing

The first weekend we owned the land I called upon some close friends to come out and start dropping trees.  We dropped 31 trees in one day, and broke one chain saw.  Kelly and I went to the land on Sunday and bucked up more logs and took care of some small twigs.  I was startled when my phone rang on Monday morning from the previous land owner.  He called and informed me that there was a fire on the lot.  I asked him where the fire occurred and how much damage there was.  I figured there were only two rational explanations for the fire.  One was the train tracks and the other was the power lines.  A large, albeit skinny, balsam top broke off and landed on the power line starting the fire around 2AM Monday morning.  The neighbors smelled smoke and called the Murphy Lake Fire Department.  We lost 3 huge old growth white ceders and some smaller trees.  I went out on Monday, and thanked the fire crew who was still out there sawing logs and clearing fuel.  They were an awesome crew who stacked all the cut wood from the fire in accessible places.

I called a contact that I know from the past who is now in excavating (C&C Excavating 218-348-8983).  His name is Bill Onnen, and he was amazing.  He called a McRae Excavating out of Melrude and ordered some pit run to build up the drive way just incase his dump truck was too heavy.  Bill instructed me to leave three feet on top of the stump and when I was done with all the cutting to call him for our rendevous!  

McRae came out on Monday and dropped and spread 24 yards of pit run.  Bill leveled off the drive way.  He began pulling the stumps with the Case tractor, and while the stump was in the air I sawed off he remaining wood from the stump.  Bill made arrangements with McRae to run just the stumps to his pit for disposal.  The cheaper alternative was to burn them but who has three years to sit around and burn stumps.  Bill pulled the stumps and used the open space as a landing pad so we could more efficiently place them into the dump truck.  I have never engaged in a large scale project like this.  What was truly impressive was the aftermath of this portion of the project.  When Bill pulled the stump he placed the stump on the side, and proceeded to grate the remaining root ball for excess dirt.  He then placed the stump away from the excavator and began filling in the hole and leveling off the portion of land absent the large stump.  I will spend a lot of time pulling roots, but I don't have huge depressions in the ground and need to spend a cash for tons and tons of fill.  


The post will involve the sisyphean endeavor of securing an acceptable mound system. I will get into the granular level of soils, compositions, and land use permitting challenges. Thanks for reading and staying connected!  D

Here are the before and after shots.  



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