permaculture

["Claude Genest" <genest@together.net>]

Mikal,

Might you happen to have some pictures of the process ?
ANy chance you could post them ?

Thanks either way,

Claude

----- Original Message -----
From: Mikal Jakubal <mjakubal@asis.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2000 9:33 AM
Subject: earthworking day at my place (long)


> The last few days have seen major craziness at my place. Had a Cat (a D5c
> with a 6-way blade) and a backhoe running around tearing the place up for
> two days. Then I rented a Bobcat and spent another day touching-up and
> building garden beds, spreading wood chip mulch and re-doing things I
> didn't like. All that in 100+ degree heat. Never have more than one piece
> of equipment working at once! It was too hard to keep track of what
> everyone was doing, and a bulldozer can do lots of damage in just a couple
> minutes or so. While the Cat was working under a big oak by the house, I
> used a long-handled pitch fork to lift some low-growing branches out of
the
> way each time it drove under. I even verbally emphasized being really
> careful around the trees. Then when I went off doing something else, the
> driver smacked the machine's tracks into the trunk, tearing off a big
chunk
> of bark. Won't kill the tree or anything, but it looks terrible, and is
> right in a very visible spot.
>
> The Cat operator was really good, but not at all familiar with this kind
of
> work. I'm sure that trying to communicate pc design concepts or subtle
> landscape relationships to operators who are mostly used to building roads
> is a common problem. I first tried to explain things in performance terms
> such as "I want this area to slope to the road in a series of wide, flat
> terraces--about a blade wide each--on contour so that no water runs off
> them." That not getting across too well, I switched to "scrape 8 inches
off
> from here to here, and spread it out over here to bring this up 4 inches."
> That worked a little better. The problem was that he just couldn't
> visualize what it was that I wanted. That's how the best operators work:
> they get a picture of the finished product in their head and dig away
> everything else. He just couldn't read my mind, and I just couldn't draw
> him a clear enough picture.
>
> Anyway, after all has been said and done, I've got my terraces, swales,
> paths and so on, more or less as I want them. The swales took four tries,
> but I think they're right. The first two attempts with the Cat just didn't
> seem right. Then I re-did them with the Bobcat (which, by the way, is a
> small digging and scooping machine) a couple times. One still seems like
it
> doesn't fit, but I can't think of what else to do with it. The reason for
> so much trial and error was that I've only been able to find and see three
> examples of swaling and the available literature on design/performance
> criteria seems to be slim. But this was a really good education--if
> somewhat expensive at $90/hour Cat time.
>
> Normally, I wouldn't dream of so totally rearranging the landscape like
> this, but the whole site was already bulldozer altered by the previous
> owners. Most of the topsoil from the upper end was pushed down as fill to
> flatten the site. So one last thing to do is get the loader and a dump
> truck back here next week and move the huge pile of extra top soil back up
> where it came from. For now, the whole place is a huge dry dust bowl. As
> soon as I finish the shovel and rake work, I'll water it down once and
> cover all the bare dirt with straw. Best thing is, I finally get to plant
> the melons!
>
> Mikal
>
>
>
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