Best use for treed land near Houlton

[bobbybloom]

Thanks for the advice Beekeeper. I meant to say: dry out my property which was saturated through some freak rainfall event.

[Submariner]

Hardpan is commonly called 'ledge' in Maine.

When water gets down to ledge it is not going any further down. So I think that pond maintenance is easier then it would be in other locales.

An issue I see is that to approach soggy ground, it is usually very soft, mushy. No heavy equipment can safely go there, except in winter.

My land was clear cut, before I bought it. Since the soil was soft the harvesting equipment knocked down many trees to form a pad to drive on. This pressed those trees down into the muck, and supported the heavy equipment. But it also left me now with a lot of buried trees. Any time I dig, I stand a good chance of hitting a 18" diameter tree trunk. A few times I have tried digging them up, but they are commonly over 40 foot long and still have their stump and many limbs attached [all underground]

You may be able to work out a path where you could dig a shallow trench to divert surface run-off, to keep it moving along and off your property. As compared to backing up and spreading out so much.

Beavers are handled by asking around and finding a local trapper. They can be trapped in Nov-Dec. Otherwise beaver are best left untouched.

Another idea, is to look for willow or poplar trees. Cut up as many branches as you can and stick them in the wet soil. They will root and you may be able to dry-out the soil some.

[beltrams]

This is an excellent thread with lots of knowledgeable folks.

Thanks all! I've learned a lot myself, and I wasn't even the OP

[mainebrokerman]

"run-off" is the concern when developing land/or changing any type of water flow- usually the run-off concern is how it damages, any buildings, or improvements (roads) to a neighbors property- it looks like you have a farm-cash crop nearby, if you are clear of that, you should be ok


id never repeat the words "divert water flow" or "created wetlands" in public


looks like a decent parcel- a good escape

[kellysmith]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

Hardpan is commonly called 'ledge' in Maine.

Now I've lived in Maine my whole life and never heard ledge referred to as hardpan. Bedrock yes, hardpan, no...Ledge in Aroostook county pretty much allows water to drain because the sedimentary rock that is referred to as ledge has pretty much been stood into a vertical position by Mother Nature over the course of time. Quite a bit of geologic activity up this way in the past. Not only is ledge pretty much standing vertical to how the sediment was deposiited that formed it, the seams pretty much run North/South. You won't find it running East/West to any extent at all.

Typically what causes swamps up this way is a clay based soil just like in the description below. It will be a whitish color and impervious to water. Just saying..

Hardpan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[bobbybloom]

Thank you everybody for the great information. I'm looking forward to getting out there and implementing some of these ideas.