Spent all morning on the back of the dam. I had a bunch of cottonwood and locust trees growing up on the back of the dam. Plus lots of briars, and now some multi floral rose has shown up. What’s the deal with the back of a dam that only attracts plant life with thorns or barbs? I just don’t have the guts to back my tractor down the dam with the brush hog attached. I’m “pretty” sure I could get back up. But not 100% sure. So it’s a manual job done every two or three years. First pic is from above. Second pic is from below. There is no evidence that I still have seep or leak as there is no wet spots behind the dam. Third pic shows how low the water level is with the continuing drought.
It’s probably a bit late now, but to keep brushy crap off the dam I have a pullbear lever for yanking out small trees before the roots get too big. It is a good workout, and there is something satisfying about popping them up. Willows don’t work so well with it, as they have the longest, stringiest roots of them all. Those get hit with glyphosate. Trees that get too large get sawn off and immediately hit with a paintbrush of concentrated roundup or stump killer before they can dry. Just mowing them off allows the roots to just get super huge and harder to kill.
When it comes to brush hogging the dam, I have filled tires to help, load up the front bucket with rocks, keep the bucket as low as possible, stay in low, and back down carefully. If I start to slide at all, I would drop the bucket, but i haven’t needed to. My dam is steep enough where I cannot mow side to side. Needless to say my seat has a crease in it from holding on with my cheeks.
What scares me more is mowing the cut uphill from the pond which is as steep as the dam. I just got that done yesterday for the very first time in 15 years. Vegetation wasn’t growing well on it, so it was mostly mud and stone until recently. I tried a few years ago and immediately started sliding down on a platter of mud and stone towards the water. I dropped the deck and the bucket and stopped sliding. I had to leave the tractor there for a few weeks for it to dry enough and drop brush down for traction. There is finally enough vegetation on it, mainly in the form of pussy willows, so it went much better.
