Too Hot to Work

It's been so hot and humid the last couple weeks that I've found it hard to do more than putter around or run the bulldozer.  I'm at a crossroads where the projects are getting big enough that I have to really put some thought into how they are going to fit into the big picture.  Some of the things I'm noodling are:

1) Bringing in electricity.  It looks like I'm going to need at least three poles and maybe up to five (or more!). I'd like to trench it but the engineer seemed to think that might not be doable because of all the rock.  I need to meet up with him and see what my options are.  Hopefully that will help me decide where to put the transformer.

2) Planting grazing grass.  I'd like to put in a big field of Orchard grass but I'm afraid it's going to take a lot of soil amendment to get it to grow.  Need to get the soil tested and find out how bad it is.

3) Build a third corral.  I'd really like to get some Alpacas but if I do, I'm going to need electricity and water as well as third area to separate the males and females.  It'd also be necessary so they don't overgraze. Alpacas aren't as tough as goats and so they'd need grass forage as well as the brush.

4) Building a pole barn.  I'd love get the barn built but I have to lock down the electricity question before I build.  Also need to lock down the orientation.

There are also a million other little projects such as maintenance on gates, fences, trails, equipment, etc.  For example, one of my gates started leaning real bad because the original fence builder didn't put support wire on it, so I ended up having to go back and do it after the fact (pic of tools below).  It helped a little, but the post is cracked so it's not a final solution.  I'm wondering if I have any recourse with the builder after several years?

From 2012-08-27

Another ongoing maintenance project is trail repair.  Since we cut almost all the trails out of raw forest, there are still a lot of stumps, rocks, high spots, etc that need to be smoothed over.  One effective method I've found is dragging logs and tree tops down the trails.

They have a lot of weight and do a great job of smashing the high spots and smoothing it.  I just chain them up, hop on the quad and start riding.  Usually I use three treetops or three logs, but on this particular day, I just used what was laying around.

From 2012-08-27

Another continual source of maintenance is the bulldozer.  My latest mystery is how the fuel filter keeps getting plugged with dirt.  It would appear that someone has dumped dirt in my fuel tank, but for the life of me, I can't figure out the motive.  The dozer is usually parked along the trail somewhere and it would take a fair amount of work just to find it.  The picture below is of the second filter I've replaced in a month.  The first looked as bad as this one.

From 2012-08-27

I scraped some of the mud away to show how thick it's packed around the filter.  That's all I need is some vandal creating havoc.  Maybe my next project will be to string up some "Hunger Games" style booby traps for the interlopers.

From 2012-08-27