Leveling a Bumpy Yard with a Harley Rake…gone Wrong
Hey it's Brock here with Rock Hill Farms And today I want to get a little bit of Practice and experience at leveling a Yard With a Harley rake and maybe even talk About some other ways to do the same job And get get your take on it a little bit But this area down here used to be an Area where cattle were kept and the Cattle had access to this pond And then they would trample all around This and there was a Corral right over Here that I've taken that Corral out And the line of sight from our house Down to the beautiful view of this pond Crosses right here so I want to keep all This area mowed down nice and neat the Problem is if you can imagine that cows Used to be out here and Trampling this area Every step you take right here is like a Twisted ankle it's just like divots and The whole thing is just rough and I Really want to smooth this out and put Down grass seed and try to get a real Nice view from the house so I've thought About a few different ways to do that And I think the best option I have is Probably with the Harley rake the other Problem with that is I just got this skid loader and the Harley rake last fall I think I only ran That Harley rake a few times I don't Have a whole lot of experience with it
Anyway I've talked enough let's get a Piece of equipment down here and see if We can get some work done Foreign I moved the camera down to this end of The pond so I'm going to make passes This way I think we'll get a better look At how it's doing I'm also a little bit unsure now that I'm down here this ground is still Really wet from when it rained yesterday I don't know how that all that moisture In the ground is going to affect this But let's just find out Thank you I'm realizing that some of you may be Experienced operators with one of these Pieces of equipment right here but a lot Of you probably aren't so I should at Least show you what it is and how it Works so let's go take a look So I think this might be carbide right Here if you've got all these hardened Nubs right here that just pulverize the Soil And then it kind of pushes it behind This and then you've got like an Overflow here so as the material piles Up behind it some of it will leak back Through here and that's how it kind of Levels and pulverizes and prepares the Ground for seed all right so if you look At what we just went over here It's ripping out the grass
It's busting the soil up into little Pieces and it's kind of leveling But at the same time where there's more Of a big dip it has not removed that yet Not with the first pass So that's pulverizing a little bit the Way I just did it so I'm going to do That exact same thing all the way across This then we'll probably cross hatch it A couple times And see if we can not only take out the Little irregularities but also smooth Out some of the bigger more gradual Humps in the In the overall landscape here so Let's see what happens This second pass is when I realized I Had a little bit of a problem With dry soil that is going to crumble And it is going to roll behind the Roller like you see but with loose dry Material it's going to crumble and it's Going to pass in between the roller and That bar above it and that bar is Adjustable to determine how much Material you want to let back through But the point is with this mud it's just Caking up and eventually I had to raise The roller a little bit and just spread It out with that and then I had to go Over that section a second time The moral of the story is don't try to Run a Harley rake when the ground's Really wet
And at this point I was thinking that The whole thing was going to be a waste Of time but later I realized that this Is still serving a purpose and helping Me move forward on my project Thank you Thank you That ended up being a big mess And it's really obvious why and I Actually realized it right before I Started the machine and I just did it Anyway to see what would happen And that's why I like to experiment out Here instead of right up by the house Where it'd be a bigger problem if this Is all patchy for a little while But I thought I thought this was going to be a two-day Job today I break up the ground and level it out And tomorrow I come back down here Spread seed over it and then use a Three-point drag Harrow to kind of cover The seed back over It's still going to be a two-day job but Now day one Was making a mess and stirring this up Then we're gonna skip a day maybe two And those days are going to be about Letting the ground dry letting some wind Blow across here letting the sun hit it And now that it's stirred up it's going To dry better then The second work day
I'm going to use the drag Harrow to Spread all this and smooth it out flat Then we'll seed it and then we'll hit it Again with the Harrow so It's kind of disappointing that this was Too wet to work up properly but I think Just irritating and agitating the ground Is going to help it dry faster so wasn't A total loss I had a good time maybe learned Something and it's good enough for me so I appreciate you taking time to watch The video put links on the screen to a Couple more of our videos I'll see you Next time
