My imaginary friend said, "So David, how did your weekend go?"
David replied "Well let me tell you, it was interesting?"
I.F. "Interesting in a good way or a bad?"
David "I'd have to say more bad than good, but I was able to prove I was a man and there was no reason to call a tow truck (as my wife kept insisting) so I'd still call it a success."
My front pond is low and since I'd like to plant a cypress in the edge of the water I decided that I'd begin by cleaning out the pond before the rains hit, as they have for the past 2 years when I've decided to do this.
There's a big volunteer bush right where I need to enter the pond and since I hadn't picked out the tree, and can't till weekend after next, I decided to leave the bush in place and sneak around behind it. This was probably the first misteak I've made in my entire life!
Things were going good till they weren't.
I think I need to put that on my tombstone and probably tattoo it on my forehead to keep me on the straight & narrow while I'm still alive.
I backed the tractor in because I worried that the little front tires might dig in deeper and I might have an issue backing back out. Unfortunately you can't really see the bottom of the back tires while you're in the driver's seat.
I also was batting back the bush as I was so close that it was all in my face. The branches were hitting me in the face and also hitting me on the back of the head as they came by the roll bar on the tractor. I thought I was winning that battle as the bush kept getting easier to manage until suddenly I realized the reason for that was that the bush was further away than when I began. (Cue the Dunh, Dunh, Daaaaaa music)
The ground was very firm when I jumped up and down on it to check it out before risking the tractor on it, but with a heavy tractor the left rear wheel broke through to some softer dirt and the tractor began to slide slowly towards the wet dirt and I ended up almost in the lilies buried up to the axle.
Attachment:
it is stuck.jpg
I literally was only 6" too far out on the wrong side but fortunately the right side of the tractor was on solid ground. Any attempts to extricate myself just made me slide closer and closer to the water. My wife had zero confidence I could get it out and even worried I'd tip it over (I was a little worried about that myself) and she was quite vocal about it.
But being a guy I had to try to get this out. I had time on my side. It was over 100 degrees right then and I knew the forecast for the next 10 days was 100+ with no rain in sight so it could only get better, right?
I grabbed the few boards I had and tried placing them under the wheels but they didn't help. I then got some small pieces of plywood to put alongside the wheels to hopefully slow down the sideways slide and headed into town for more boards and some sand or rocks or something!!
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working it out.jpg
Fortunately by about 3:00 I got it out and proved my manliness, not that my wife noticed. I even got it out and got cleaned up in time to take my wife out to a night of frivolity.
So that was my Tim Allen kind of day.
Attachment:
success.jpg
You've got nothing for scale, but that's a medium frame tractor, not one of those lawn/garden tractors and the rear tires are filled with water for traction and to balance out a big load in the blade.
I've got to go to Colorado for a hippie wedding this weekend so like Pinky & the Brain, I'll try it again the following weekend. If you never hear from me again after that you will know I did the same thing again and was too embarrased to ever show my face again.