Surveying 101

Tools

• Contractor's site level - shoots vertical intervals - drop in stairstep. Vertical intervals are equal unless there is huge variation in slope. Contractor's level is by Berger at Home Depot.

• Laser level - online - quickest is Forestry Supply has good options. Robust. No hassle. Self-leveling laser - where you don't have to do a bubble to level. Must have 360 deg compass on it. Laser shoots 360 degrees. Shoots lo less than 1000 feet in shooting length. TopCon brand.

• Stick - Forestry Supply - 16' stick. Reads in 10ths of inch. Read the back of it, so distance from ground rather than absolute.

• Weedwhacker + chainsaw. Offset 10' from trees if trees are in the way.
  • Always go in one direction.
  • Need a scale map of property.

Procedure for Contour Survey

Summary: Shoot vertical intervals first (that will help you find slope). Set up horizontal intervals (following contours, creates aspect).

1. Find steepest slope that you can find, using rotating laser level mark 2 foot intervals and mark with flags
2. If the slope is too steep for a 2 foot drop standard, may need to be 3' or 4' at high slopes (for example, 10%)
3. Marking terraces: 25' terrace is the guiding criteria, but if it's steeper then the terraces might have to be as narrow as 10'
4. Result: smooth arcs of 100' marked by flags
5. Mark contours with flags every 20' using rotating laser level and transmitter

Mapping Procedure

• 100' grid, using transit level and 2 compasses (because one might be corrupted)
• Number/label squares on grid, write on a map
• For each square you will be able to tell slope, aspect, and decide how you want to use that square
• Map will be used to triangulate any location necessary in the future

Design

Design: 5% slope not good for animals, west face not good.

Initial thoughts:

West strip

• more water, shade
• less erosion
• more established creeks
• proposed use: homesteads, collective gardens, ponds, water storage

East strip from S to N end

• Workshops
• large-scale storage (pole barns, tractor garages)
• greenhouses
• orchard/food forest (swales, trees, vines, edible groundcover)
• Ponds where there is good catchment (directly NW of orchard looks practical, as well as just N of the old workshop)
• pasture (organic shapes with edible fence following swales on contour)
• grazeland rotated by species, with cover crop and grain rotated seasonally
• rain catchment on animal shelters
• some shade trees planted
• water storage at top of slope, gravity-fed water troughs for animals

Native Trees

• remove ones with less utility, to be turned into biochar, lumber
• remove deadwood, leaving some logs to be inoculated with mushrooms
• Forested center space:
  • Pond at north end, continuing into creek with ponds coming down the slope
  • Pigs fenced in with palettes, left to forage and free range, fed the byproducts of civilization (whey, food wastes, fallen nut crop)
• Keepers: mulberry, elder, walnut, oak

Ask Parker on full soil report.

Resources

• Surveying Fundamentals and Practices - J. Nathansan et al.
• Dan Schellenberg;
  • Surveying Slope Lines
  • Putting in contour lines every 20 feet
  • Rotating Laser Level
  • Rotating Laser Level and Reciever
  • Making Grid With a Transit
• Site Survey