Yard

First I cut down about 20 big trees and a lot more small ones to extend a natural clearing. After cutting them down we realized it looked really nice without flattening, so we decided to keep it naturally sloped, which makes the yard much bigger, less erosion prone, and faster to make.

Last weekend I rented a Cat 277C multi-terrain loader:

This is about a 10,000 pound machine with a rubber track

The first attachment I used was an industrial grapple fork. I used it to haul tons of trees, about 3 cords, up the very steep slope. It also was sturdy enough to push over stumps and grab a few at a time, along with other brush, and pile it out of the way. All in all about a summers worth of hand work in 5 hours.

Not my picture, I didn't get any pictures during the process

Then I used a Harley Box rake, which is a high powered attachment. Think fast spinning 500 pound steel rolling pin with carbide spikes. This churns the soil, mixes in debris and rotten wood, and leaves behind a flattened mulch.

Again not my picture, but this is the tool I had

After 10 hours in the machine over the weekend, we ended up with this. It's at least half an acre (22,000 square feet), we haven't measured it yet:

Looking East, 7am

Next steps are doing some final cleaning and raking by hand, then planting fieldgrass. Finally we'll fence it in and have a large dog park for Roland!