Let me tell you that tractors are amazing things. Especially with 4WD they will go over or thru just about anything that stands in their way. Of course i found out the flip side of that coin yesterday. As it turns out, when your tractor decides it can't drive over or thru whatever you want it to go over or thru, there is a pretty serious problem. Because you went over and thru a lot of shit before you got stuck.
So I took the 2355 out to do some man's work for the day. Started out by getting a load of sand from the orchard (we dug it up to plant some apple trees) and dumped that on the driveway where the rain has been doing a number. Then I decided to head down on the woods road that goes to my cabin, because there's a wet area that i wanted to smooth out with the loader. So I cruise down there and start busting up the road, having a grand old time. Then I decided that everything would be a lot better if the water had somewhere to drain. I worked on that, and it helped ... but not quite perfect. So I got my chainsaw and cut down some trees in order to back down into an area and really make a trench to drain the water. Which I did.
And the water followed me down in there, and made the ground all soft and shit, so I threw her in 4 and started to claw my way out. And i almost made it, too. Then I backed up to get ramming speed and try again. No luck. One more try. Nothing. Fuck. All this time I've just been making the damn ruts deeper and deeper. Now I'm really screwed. Back to the chainsaw. Cut down some more trees and jam them under the tires for traction. Doesn't really even help, certainly makes the ruts deeper. Now she's sunk right down and high-centered. So I pick up the front end by pushing the loader down all the way, gets the front wheels out of the mud. I get another tree, cut the limbs off, get two chains, and chain the small log to both the front tires (cross-wise) so they have something to climb on. Fire up the 2355, throw her in gear and away I go. Sort of. It's at this time that something in the mud gets a hold of my rear tire and rips the valve stem out - flat tire. Done for. Screwed. The best day ever. I'm a stupid rookie. A fucking idiot.
Thankfully my neighbor is Pete, and Pete has a big 4WD tractor too. My dad was the best man at his wedding, so he agrees to help me out. Pun intended. So down he lumbers with his beast, and we hook the chains up to the front axle of my rig. He starts pulling for all he's worth, does nothing but tear apart my road. Mine won't budge. Maybe an inch at best. Out comes the saw, but it's out of gas. Standard. Fill 'er up, cut some more trees. Get rocks, etc for traction. Try pulling again, nothing. Shit. What now? The roto-tiller on the back of my Deere weights a metric ton. Seriously. Maybe if I disconnect it she'll come right out. We do, it does. But now i'm still in the middle of the woods with a flat tire, it's starting to get dark out, and the tiller is stuck in the damn quicksand 50 feet from the road. And I'm supposedly better off than I was three hours ago. I guess. Whatever.
Moral of this story: A cock is a blessing.
And a curse.
1 comment:
yessah by the jasus ive done it a few times myself.remember once when i lost the 2040 in the middle of the field in the swale. working toward a wet hole you always try to get as much as you can until you nearly get stuck or you do get stuck. the only difference between a near escape and foundering is the number of times you have had to go cut a bunch of oak saplings, hunt up a couple pieces of chain, and get totally mud covered
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