On Road Construction-(2) Road Base

I had already decided to tackle the worst part of the road first as I knew this would consume the most time and present the biggest challenge.

Building a long road can get expensive. The cost comes from using large equipment and from the fill (rock and gravel). Last year, around us, gravel was going for around $10/yard. I'd pay $120 per 12 yard dump truck of gravel; a bit more for 2-4" rock. If you have a low spot to fill in, that doesn't go very far. My goal was to build a road as inexpensively as possible. I didn't have heavy equipment and there were resources on my land I could use. The tradeoff was (as usual) the amount of time it would take. I figured that in one summer I could get a roadbase in that would be passable for vehicles most of the year. Then I could add to it to make it better as time went on.

It would have been easy (and costly) to have rock trucked in to fill the low spots but our small stream with steep banks presents an obstacle to all but small, high suspension vehicles (like a tractor or small truck). We are strongly considering a bridge but this is yet another topic for a later date. For now, we drive across the stream (it has a rock base so there is little to no damage to the waterway). As it is now, I have gravel delivered to the back of the first field. I then have to transport it, tractor bucket by tractor bucket, across the stream, to where I want it.

Once upon a time, our land was farmed. In New England, this means stone walls and often piles of stone. There is certainly no shortage of stone in Maine. A farmer would pick up the stones brought to the surface by spring plowing and dump them in one location. The result was either a stone wall or rock pile. Wooden posts supporting wire fences often separated farmed crop land from grazing animals. Often, rocks were placed under those wire fences. The largest rocks would be cleared first and stacked under the fence. As time went on, the smaller rocks from the crop side of the fence would accumulate next to the larger rocks. Nowadays, the wooden posts are long gone but you can still find the wire running along the top of the stone wall. Note the larger rocks on the left side of the picture below and the smaller rocks on the field or farmed side of the larger rocks.


Rock piles are found in places where it was too far to go to add rocks to a stone wall. Rocks from spring plowed fields were picked up and dumped in a pile often on the downside of a slope in an area considered out of the way but convenient enough to a field. I mention this in detail because these rocks have been a terrific resource for me in building our road.

I am a purist at heart and I wouldn’t dream of destroying a stone wall which I feel has historical value as described above. Most of the stones I needed were fist sized to some almost one-man stones (a one-man stone is a stone the can be moved by one man). These rocks were harvested from a rock pile or taken from the side of a stone wall. In many cases, the stone wall was more of a pile of rocks and in harvesting, I also rebuilt the stone walls. I figure that if the farmer who originally moved these rocks knew I was using his stones to build a road, he would be happy that I was doing something practical with them. Below left is the area I am harvesting the rocks from, below right is the beginnings of a rebuilt stone wall (it's the same wall).



The worst part of the road was furthest back from the road. It was the "v" shaped area where two stands of white pine drained (see previous post for a description of the roadway). There was a natural clear space, between two stands of white pine, where the skidder tracks went and this, so I thought would make a good place for a road. I knew this would be the most difficult as it was the wettest area after the field I had just finished. First, I dug drainage ditches on either side of the roadbed. The diggings I placed on the roadbed to build up the road base (as I had done previously). Now I had a raised road with drainage ditches on either side. I was surprised (and dismayed) to find that the road remained wet and muddy. I had noticed earlier, when excavating for the drainage, that I hit clay. I also noticed that the excavated earth above the clay smelled very manure-ish. Whether it was just rich in organic matter or was a respository for manure I'll never know. What I do know is that it would never make it as a road. So much for an easy time.

I ended up removing all of the organic topsoil, some 12-16 inches of it, for the width of the road plus the drainage ditches. Underground, water sits on top of and travels on top of clay as clay is relatively impervious to water. This is why my roadbed remained wet. My excavation cut a 16 foot wide trench up through the middle of these two pine groves. As you can imagine, I ended up with quite a bit of topsoil. I hesitate to use the word "nice" in front of topsoil because this is Maine and anything you do with your land implies "rocks". So, I had a pile of topsoil with lots of rocks mixed in. You can always use topsoil so this was in fact a good thing that I had a few small mountains of decent soil. Aside from being fun places for the kids to get dirty, I have used the soil for filling and leveling many areas, from field that I am restoring to the sides of the road I am building. It grows grass well (after you rake out the rocks of course).

So, now I have this 120 foot long swath of excavated future road. What next? Rocks.... lots of rocks. Serious, serious rock. Even after I thought I was done after summer one, I had to re-excavate and fill with (you guessed it) more rock during spring two.

On top of the clay left behind after scooping off the topsoil, there were clearly some areas that were much wetter than others. The only way to create a dry road bed was to create a raised road bed. I had plenty of rocks. I had big rocks from where skidders had gone through stone walls to boulders to rubble. My plan was simple. Big rocks on the bottom, smaller rocks on the top. Some of the rocks were so big, I could only push them or roll them into place with the tractor's bucket. Others I could manage to get in the bucket using leverage. Yet others I could pick up with my backhoe. It has an attachment called a thumb which allows you to "pinch" rocks between it and the bucket. The big rocks were a challenge, the small rocks have become a pain. These smaller rocks came from harvesting rock piles and stone walls. I'd free the rocks from years of soil accumulation with a hand held grub hoe, fill up a plastic bucket and then pour them into the tractor bucket. Once that was full, I'd drive to where I needed the rock, sometimes teetering because I was at capacity and empty the bucket. Most of the time, I emptied the tractor bucket by hand. There is a difference between just dumping mostly round rock and placing it by hand. Placing it by hand allows you to fit the rocks into place. This makes a big difference in the stability and quality of your road. Dumped rock will squish around and make more of a soupy mix. It relies on being driven on to pack it down. Placed rock fits together and doesn't have anywhere to go when driven on and thus provides a better base.



There were three distinct areas where the road was very wet. The above left picture shows the fill for the wettest area of road. Subsequently, this area received the largest rock. This area was at the very top end of the "v". The roadbed is about 14 ft wide leaving the outside margins as drainage swales. The banks on the outside edges of the swales were sloped and seeded. I still need to finish topping this area with small rock.

The middle photo was the second wettest area and located at the bottom of the "v". I built the roadbed with one-man rock on the bottom. When it thawed a bit in early winter, it got a bit soupy. Later on, as spring progressed, this section became much worse. So, I scooped out more soil and filled with more rock.

The last photo is a low spot right before the stone wall. It too needs more rock. Things came to a halt once the ground froze this fall. It's a bit hard to free the rock from frozen ground.

The areas of road that didn't need rock have received a topping of 3-4 inches of gravel. My thought was to get most all the roadbed covered in this much gravel so that driving on it would pack it in. I purchased about $1000. of gravel during summer 1 which covered most all of the roadbed. Next spring, I will invest in some more gravel and resurface the road with a few more inches. I figure that a few seasons of doing this should build a nice packed surface for us to travel on.

I'd mentioned that we had to move our driveway entrance because the state deemed it unsafe due to sight distances and travel speed. Whoever came out to mark the position of the entrance didn't look at the obstacles to road creation beyond that entrance. Perhaps he did and chuckled. There was a large rock pile and stone wall to move and a wet area of field drainage to cross. I cleared the roadway of brush and trees (and pulled out the roots). I moved most all the rock to low, soft areas for fill. Then I hit an obstacle. Ledge. Right in the middle of our driveway. It was a bit too tall to drive over and needed to be removed. I thought we would have to hire someone to blast.

Here is where good neighbors come in handy. Our neighbor across the street has 3 horses on a small lot. His pasture has been grazed out (no more grass) . When we first bought the land, he had asked if he could pasture his horses in our field across from his house. I thought it would be a nice gesture to agree and as a plus, it would help manage the field. At the time, I didn't know he worked for a heavy equipment contractor. He saw our situation and asked if he could fix our driveway in exchange for letting him use our pasture. One weekend, a HUGE excavator appeared, the ledge in our driveway disappeared and the wet drainage area was filled with large rock. I have since excavated a trench and placed a culvert, filled low spots with two truckloads of rock (it was too far to haul rock from my rock piles) and topped with a layer of gravel. As our front field remains wet, I have also exaggerated the existing drainage swales leading to the culvert. Here I had to stop due to wet weather this fall. In the spring, I will finish grading and seed.


The first photo is the driveway entrance, the second is the culvert where once there was a very wet area. This is where most of the large rock fill ended up. The last photo is the drainage swale between the driveway and field. You can see that it collects water nicely.

So far, a one-half mile driveway has cost me a bit over $1000. in fill. This does not include my labor, tractor hours or fuel. I have heard estimates of around $30,000. to create something on this scale. I'm not sure if this is accurate but for the same cost and my labor, I got a tractor out of the deal and I'm much more satisfied with the product.

Forest Stewardship

After spending a few months working on our acreage and road building, I started thinking about how best to manage our forest woods. It was clear that some of the white pine were getting on in years. It was also clear that many of these white pine trees were disfigured and didn't have much in the way of usable timber. This disfiguration is due to a pest called a pine weevil which destroys the dominant stem of a pine tree leaving one or more of the remaining side shoots (branches) to take over as the dominant trunk. Weevils can attack one tree many times leaving a tree with few to many "yanks" or bends in the trunk leaving little in the way of straight wood for lumber. My options were to leave the trees to age and fall or selectively remove some of them. Pine is not very good wood to burn for heat due to it's high creosote levels and low heat output (as compared to the favored harwood to burn in our neck of the woods-oak). As far as I know, this leaves one option which is to chip the trees for either pulp or biomass. As these last options bring in little revenue, getting someone to harvest for these options will be difficult.

But I digress. I want to focus on the stewardship aspect of forest management which is where the above thoughts led me. Last fall, I had taken a 5 week extension course sponsored by the Maine State Forestry folks. This course touched on many different aspects of forest management but advocated strongly the development of a Forest Management Plan (FMP). Briefly, an FMP is a document, written by a state certified Forester, that describes your land, the tree stands present, their overall quality and potential and provides a 10 year prescription for managing timber. If desired by the landowner, the FMP can be much more than a prescription for trees. More later on that. For a bit more information visit these web sites: (http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/certification/) (http://www.umext.maine.edu/piscataquis/Forestry/forestryassistance.htm).

In our state, having an FMP also opens the door to government cost sharing for timber/land management. Two expenses I will be looking to obtain partial reimbursement for in the next year will be the development of a permanent stream crossing and for mast tree (food for animals) release. So, not only do I get a professional prescription for managing our forested area but there is some financial benefit as well. Of course, the management is labor intensive (and cost intensive if you choose to hire someone else to do it).

First, I took advantage of a free visit by our local State Forester and then another free visit by a private forester who works for a local lumber mill. I wanted to hear a few different opinions before choosing a forester to write our FMP. I ended up contracting with the forester for the local mill for a number of reasons. First, I felt good about his knowledge base and felt that he would represent our interests. In my book, feeling good about who you are working with ranks at the top of the list. Intuition usually always rules my judgement (In one significant instance where I decided against it, I ended up getting screwed.). I also felt that his connection to the mill would have exposed him to many different loggers and he would be able to find a match between us and a good logger when it came to harvesting.

Development of our FMP began with a walk around our acreage with our forester Mark. We walked and talked for a few hours, he entered waypoints on his GPS unit and made notes. This time was well spent as I could direct Mark to the different types of stands we had, ask questions, talk about our plans for building in a certain area and identify the location of a future farm pond. He was able to get a feel for our needs and a good FMP is taylored to the needs of the landowner as much as the needs of the forest. Managing our forestland for timber was a priority for us but managing for wildlife was equally as important. This second aspect became clear later on.

Mark created a first draft and sent it to me for perusal and feedback. I read and re-read the draft and it didn't feel quite right. This document was called a Forest Management Plan and yet it was really only a "tree" management plan. I felt that managing a forest using what had been written was only partially right but I wasn't sure what to do about it. This was when I stumbled upon a document about a program called "Focus Species Forestry". This program was developed a number of years ago by Maine Audubon, the State Forestry Folks, the Master Loggers Certification Program and SWOAM, the Small Woodlot Owners Association in Maine. These are all the key players in forestry in our state so I became interested.

The Focus Species Forestry program differs from traditional harvesting (http://www.maineaudubon.org/conserve/forest/focusspecies.shtml) only in that it first identifies the Focus Species on a piece of land, then seeks to sustain the habitat of those species before harvesting. Harvesting can actually create needed habitat. Many folks think harvesting destroys habitat (and they are correct) but, it's also really the only way to create an early-successional forest. These beginning forest areas are important in our region for creating habitat for small animals that provide many larger predatory animals with food. So, in this case, we trade one habitat for another. Managing for one Focus Species means that you are managing for many other species that live within the same habitat and have similar needs. For instance, one of our Focus Species is the Snowshoe Hare. By providing an early successional forest with clumps of young fir trees, we are giving the Snowshoe Hare protective cover in which it likes to hide. This area is also important to other small mammals like squirrels and chipmunks as well as specific birds for nesting and protection. On a very simple level, if all our forest were mature hardwoods, these species would be absent and so would the animals that prey on them. Realistically this is not true, but the picture is a complex one full of many habitat and animal interrelationships .

This program provided the information I needed to fill in the missing piece of our FMP. It was easy for me to provide the animal information on Focus Species after having been out in our forest daily for almost a year. I had seen one Snowshoe Hare but I was surprised, come winter, the evidence of a significant population (tracks and turds). In the spring and summer, I regularly hear woodpeckers and occasionally see a large Pileated flying about. In warmer months, we have regular Whitetail Deer visitors that love the newly planted grasses in the field I have restored. They do not winter on our land as evidenced by the lack of tracks that are clearly present in the soft soil other times of the year. These three different Focus Species provided enough information to define specific habitat to create, manage and protect. It doesn't seem like alot of information but remember that by managing forest for these three species, we will be managing for a much larger spectrum of other critters. We were lucky in that our forester was familiar with Focus Species Forestry and could add the missing content to our Forest Management Plan.

After adding Focus Species information to our plan, the final draft arrived. A few typos were corrected and off it went to our local State Forester for approval. Once we receive approval, we will be eligible for cost-sharing. The downside of this is that I have to pay our forester to come identify what is to be done and pay him to come back and say that it's been done. In many cases, this will negate some of the funds I receive for doing the small work. I do understand why this has to occur. I wouldn't think of not having him present come harvest time.

All in all, I am glad we paid to have a Plan developed. It reflects our desire to be good stewards to the forest we plan to call home sometime in the future. In Maine, we get reimbursed for some of the costs associated with developing a plan, both directly from the State as cash and later, as a state income tax deduction. Our plan was initially quoted at about $400. We ended up paying $650., probably because of the addition of the animal component. The State will reimburse us up to 50% of the cost at a maximum of $120. and give us a $200. credit on our taxes. In theory, our outlay will be $330. for our plan. We will be purchasing an $800. culvert for a stream crossing this summer and cost-sharing will reimburse us $500. In essence, this savings will offset the remaining monies we will have spent.