High Lord Gomer

Poked with Sticks
Sep 26, 1999
11,790
34
Berm.jpg


Silly, you were thinking a motocross berm?

I rented a Bobcat for the long weekend and two large dump truck loads of clay. We're putting a new fence around the pool and I extended the area to be enclosed. The problem is that it is on a hillside and the water runs down that area. I had some dirt hauled in before to fill in that area but I didn't pack the hillside and some of it washed away. This time instead of a backhoe (that made me nervous runing on a hill), I got a Bobcat with tracks.

Here's the new hillside ready for me to finish the fence:

Hillside.jpg


Silly me had too much dirt brought in...what to do with it?

Jump.jpg


It's only 30' but I built a landing at 12' or 15' for the kids. I also used the Bobact to finish clearing a trail on the other half of the woods. I spent weeks and weeks clearing the other half of the trail by digging and pulling out trees with a quad so I wouldn't have stumps in the trail. It took me all of two hours to cut the new half with the Bobcat.

Now I just need a bike....
 

VintageDirt

Baked Spud
LIFETIME SPONSOR
Jan 1, 2001
3,043
9
I built a huge berm this morning. But it was stinking up the house so I had to flush it.
 

SpDyKen

LIFETIME SPONSOR
Mar 27, 2005
1,237
1
I built one once, too. Back in 2001. At my 'other' house, (where I was raised, and my parents still live.)

93 dump-truck loads of sugar clay, and 4 loads of rock later, and I had something that kept the Mississippi River out of the basement & garage this last spring and summer.

It was kind of fun. I did have a few other 'issues' I had to resolve, like sewer/septic, etc. (google "Orangeburg pipe.") I'd like to haul in another 20 loads, or so, but the main obstacle is the effort it takes to grow a good stand of grass again! (Especially when I'm not living there.)

It is occasionally part of the 'kids track,' which is only available to ride in the late-summer & fall, (low water, dry ground.)
 

whenfoxforks-ruled

Old MX Racer
~SPONSOR~
Oct 19, 2006
8,129
2
Merrillville,Indiana
Orangeburg, nooooooooooooooooo! How inexpensive should one get with parts? I have a lady friend who keeps getting flooded. She has finally given up on putting materials up cheaply. I have offered a concrete and steel retainer wall. People, myself included, who live in a flood plain, should not be real sad when we get wiped out? Till it happens to you! How do you like the septic field in a flood plain? What a surprise to back wash into your house, everything you have been trying to get rid of for the last 20 years! Now add one of a flood plains favorite material, clay. But, it does make damn good jumps, and berms I suppose. And the orangeburg, I mean come on. When did it seem like a good idea to take a newspaper material coated with pitch, and throw it in the ground and call it plumbing. The guys were probably quite satisfied with doing a good job. Fast forward 15 years or so and would you believe a butterfly landing on it would make it fall apart? Almost as bad as cpvc tubing and fittings. And Mr. Gomer, I sure hope you got all the roots out where you extracted the trees. All that jump is missing is a rider to put a nice lip up at the top. Looks like an expensive fence job?
 

whenfoxforks-ruled

Old MX Racer
~SPONSOR~
Oct 19, 2006
8,129
2
Merrillville,Indiana
Not very lively or thick. You walk over it a couple of times, it dies. Weeds do a lot better! I have a small pit bike table started in my yard, spoils from fixing a plumbing error in my yard!
 

High Lord Gomer

Poked with Sticks
Sep 26, 1999
11,790
34
Everything here is either sand or clay...no real dirt to speak of. Centipede grass does ok on the sand. Once I finish the fence I'll probably throw some sod down.
 

Papakeith

COTT Champ Emeritus
Damn Yankees
Aug 31, 2000
6,695
50
RI
See now, when you said berm my first thought was of a 15ft tall mound of dirt with some steel plate targets and a few silhouettes.
 

_JOE_

~SPONSOR~
May 10, 2007
4,697
3
High Lord Gomer said:
Everything here is either sand or clay...no real dirt to speak of. Centipede grass does ok on the sand. Once I finish the fence I'll probably throw some sod down.
That's how the ground is near the lake here. Most people get top-soil trucked in for lawns, the rest just mow the weeds twice a week, lol. The land rises quickly over a 5-10 mile range as you head away from the lake. There's plent of top-soil within 15 minutes of the lake shore, you just gotta move it!

NOTHING beats clay for building jumps though. They're like stone after a couple years.
 

SVTMc-G

Member
Apr 1, 2006
368
0
XRpredator said:
you coulda at least got a picture.

HAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahaha :rotfl:

he called it a berm...must've been dry docked! :rotfl:
 
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