Ravines and Pine Trees

We're in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. Our topography is ridges and ravines in heavy clay soil with karst limestone. A land of caves, sinkholes and rocky soil..

The front acre was clear cut 60 years ago and was replanted in Southern Yellow Pine. We are clearing to build a homestead. Now the issue of the trees. We have about 50 big trees limbed,the brush was mostly chipped.  and the logs stacked in a haphazard fashion. We didn't have equipment to stack the logs.

Now to questions: We are thinking of filling ravines with trees and brush then dumping topsoil and bring to grade.
We have a tracked skidsteer with log grapples and a backhoe to sling soil.

Anyone ever pull this off? Any flaws in my thinking that a ravine is simply a hole in the ground made by Nature and can be huglekultured?

I know y'all are wondering why I would bury wonderfully useful fully grown SYP trees. I've tried every which way to find someone to take them. This area is full of backyard sawmills up to large commercial loggers. No one is interested.We don't have the room for a sawmill here.

Thanks, one and all.
Geezer out...

Have you considered Alaskan sawmills? They are compact, mobile, and set up on the tree to be milled.

https://www.granberg.com/product-category/alaskan-mill/

I don’t really have an answer to your specific situation. Is it legal and to code? How will it compact over time? Will it create ruts after rains and seasonal temperature swings?

When I hear ravine I think "seasonal creekbed"
I would be afraid of creating a log/mudslide.

I agree with William as I feel the dirt will wash away with each and every rainstorm.  

I have seen large rocks that have been carried along during a heavy rainstorm so I imagine those logs would too.

Since there is some soil , there has to be some points where soil collects, rather than being eroded away.
Maybe use these trees to speed up the process,  by building hugel mounds in places where soil will stay put.


You might also be able to alter the flow of water across your landscape, since you have access to the earthmoving equipment.
Berms and swales on contour is the permie mantra.
Care still must be taken to avoid the creation of mudslides.

It occurs to me that you could use a ravine as a place to make biochar on a a grand scale.
If you do it up hill of a spot where soil naturally collects, your biochar might readily make its way into the soil.

I'm very much with William and Anne in saying don't put logs in the way of water. We just had a cyclone blow through last week and everywhere that there had been logging activity the slash scoured out drainages, swept up 10x as much silt, jammed the rivers, flooded thousands of homes and littered the beaches. The river below us piled up logs 10 m high against the nearby bridge, which is a replacement for the one that was taken out in 2004 by the same process.

Hugels are great but should never be used across a flow path. If you're looking to fill in the bottom of a ravine, use permeable brush weirs and one rock dams, and build those up as silt gets laid down.

Phil Stevens wrote:We just had a cyclone blow through last week and everywhere that there had been logging activity the slash scoured out drainages, swept up 10x as much silt, jammed the rivers, flooded thousands of homes and littered the beaches. The river below us piled up logs 10 m high against the nearby bridge, which is a replacement for the one that was taken out in 2004 by the same process.

Whoah. I wonder if humans ever learn that you can’t just go and do whatever you want with nature, it will always pay back if you go messing around with it too much.

A friend family of my inlaws cut down a lot of trees on their property, just for the money. A couple weeks later there’s a storm and trees go falling on their house. Almost should have seen that coming. :S

Thank you, one and all

I appreciate the cautions against creating the potential of a catastrophic mud slide. I'll keep your cautions in mind.

The ravines I want to fill in are on a very gentle slope and a deep and wide drainage ditch runs the entire width of the property on top of the ridge . . I've thought of using gabions at the lower end. The land is unusually flat in this particular spot and a good base could be made to hold the run of gabion.

If any of you found your way to permaculturegeezer.com and found an empty page, I apologize. I'm a novice at wordpress and struggling with it's learning curve. I'll master it in time. With that said: Try again for a cool photograph of the campsite. The old bus belonged to Bill Monroe's band. The text advertising the Bill Monroe Festival of 2000 is deteriorating.

I intend to produce a vlog as we build a house and homestead. We're in our very late 60s in good health with good energy. We'd like to inspire and teach others how to start where they find themselves.

geezer out

[quote=Vanessa Smoak

]Have you considered Alaskan sawmills? They are compact, mobile, and set up on the tree to be milled.

https://www.granberg.com/product-category/alaskan-mill/

I don’t really have an answer to your specific situation. Is it legal and to code? How will it compact over time? Will it create ruts after rains and seasonal temperature swings?

I have access to an Alaskan mill. It works great but hard on the back. Alas it's not the tool for me