[AT] Drag lines, farming and selling vegetables - fairly long set of thoughts and info

Grant Brians sales at heirloom-organic.com
Tue Nov 23 05:55:59 PST 2010


I have read the drag line thread with some interest as our main ranch (small
farm to you midwest and eastern folks) has a low area in the back that I
turned into a reservoir and deepened the existing drainage coming from
neighboring higher properties to create a "reservoir ditch". This area works
pretty well, but our downslope neighbor blocked and built up the drainage
way past about 40 years ago and so our drainage is constricted. What this
leads to is the two low fields having drainage issues on the low side, but
not being actual wetlands. Every so often the reservoir area then needs to
be dug out.
     Well, it has been too wet from irrigation (and in the winter from rain)
to even consider using the dozers to move the silt that has been built up in
these areas and besides which there are fish, crawdads, etc. to consider
too. As a result I have planned for the last 4 or 5 years to hire a neighbor
of mine to bring over a hydraulic excavator to remove silt, but lack of
funds has kept that project at bay.
     Then along comes this thread and gets me wondering if maybe I could
find a drag line and it would do the job! Here in California, the number of
irrigation canals in the Central Valley that have to be periodically
maintained and the levees that drag lines were used to either construct or
maintain are very large. I even know a guy with a late 1920's or early
1930's unit that he fires up about once a year. He would not sell cheap as
he is a collector and I don't know if it would be a workable unit (seems
like a rather short boom?), but I am inspired to consider it....
           Grant Brians
           Hollister,California
           Vegetable, Fruit and Nuts farmer
p.s. I am in my peak harvest season now and eagerly trying to sell delicious
root vegetables, greens and Tomatoes. More rain this morning is interfering
again with the farmers market sales - last weekend should have been the best
sales of the year but we got rather rained out. This morning it is rather
drippy too and the forecast as recently as  two days ago was for no rain
until after Thanksgiving!
     However on Friday, the local weekly newspaper did a story on my farm
and the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) club that we started when the
local farmers market ended for the season. Finally that seems to be picking
up as a result of the article. One of two small errors the young reporter
made was describing me as having a "graying" beard. No, it is going WHITE!
LOL. Actually because of my reddish hair, it is 1/3 or so white now and I've
yet to find a single gray hair anywhere in my beard or hair, but I am
approaching the ability to play Santa Claus from the standpoint of my beard.
The hazard of being married, farming and turning 51!




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