Where would you go?

[makar]

I would trade with you farma at least i could balance tires instead of digging clay with a screwdriver never mind trashing my track shovel.

[Taiga]

Land starts a good rifle shot south of the pioneer elevator in rycroft, pure gumbo then south and west to ashes and muskeg patches. There is a reason first farm has cows. Whole area should but times changed. People get fooled here because soil changes so quick, some of the best soil in alberta is next to me.

What is the history of the ashes you are referring to? Repeated historical wildfires, or damages from land clearing, or something else? I am further west of you and we don’t have that. I understand there were several large wildfires through my area of the Peace before full settlement, started by early settlers and Indians and you can still see the black stumps in places, but nothing that has left permanent ash on the ground. Some areas the topsoil is only 5cm deep however.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I would trade with you farma at least i could balance tires instead of digging clay with a screwdriver never mind trashing my track shovel.

You know, it never occurred to me that that wasn't a normal state of affairs. So, not everyone who drives on gravel roads, and off road has this problem? I don't balance any tires either, a 1/2 Oz weight is insignificant compared to the 4 lbs of clay perpetually stuck to the rims. I sure do enjoy stopping on the side of the road, in my good clothes, laying in the muck with a tire iron trying to get the unbalanced mud out so I can go faster than 30km/hour.

I gave some thought to the ashes comment, as I was burning brush piles today. The only thing that makes sense is that the land used to have deep peat moss, and it burnt completely, likely over the span of decades. A stack of poplar trees 15 feet high, and solid only leaves a couple of inches of ashes, so there is no way that standing timber could ever leave that much ashes. But the peat can burn/smoulder underground for years, with little oxygen, so it would leave lots of ashes in the process. Must have eventually burnt through to the surface, or a surface fire finished the job, and left the peat ashes exposed. Which would explain the low OM and shallow top soil you describe. Probably used to be the deepest richest soil in the area, then burnt all the OM, literally.

Whenever I've dug to the bottom of peat moss here(the deepest I have found is 11 feet), I find there is a layer of top soil at the very bottom, very similar to the top soil in other non-peat low ground, 6 to 8 inches deep, then clay below that, which I assume wouldn't burn?