One day, I was watching a Texas Parks and Wildlife television show about an 80-year-old retired math teacher, who was voluntarily creating biking and hiking trails in the Guadalupe Mountains for the park system. I noticed that he wasn't using a regular rake. Instead, he was using a rake hoe, which is specifically designed for raking rocks. So you want to guess what I wanted for my birthday? Yep, a rock rake! I wish I would have known about this years ago but better late than never.
This is the rake that I purchased from a company called Rogue.
These pictures were taken before the work.
I decided to rake the rocks in rows to make it easier to load up in the bucket and haul off. Of course, there were a few that didn't fit that I had to pick up and move.
When doing trail work on the land, I'm always thinking of creative ways to keep the rain water from running off the property and the soil from eroding away. So what am I doing with the rocks? Building berms! This slows the water down and allows it to percolate into the aquifer, helping restore life to our beautiful pristine Hill Country springs. This is just one picture of a few so far that I've built. It goes for quite aways. More to come for sure...
Here is a sample of what the trails look like after raking in 100-plus-degree temperature ... Labor of love.
In the picture below, you can see a line of rocks sticking out of the ground. These are deep and will stay.
Since these pictures were taken, I have done a lot more work, especially in the woods down below the hill. Besides utilizing the land for star gazing, fossil and artifact hunting, hiking, bird watching, kite flying, caving (future expedition), studying native vegetation and picnicking, I can now add trail biking! The saga continues....
