April on the farm

[eray1066]

April

April 19th I found myself doing battle with the mud. The Cat Challenger 285B was out of commission since I was putting in new brakes. So since that is the ultra slow tractor we use for the transplanter we had to find something else to do. The field crew decided to get a jump on getting one of the low (spelled wet) fields ready for planting. The Kubota L4150 with the harrow made a few passes before becoming very stuck. Once I finished the brake job most everyone was gone for the day. I hooked up the farmi logging winch to the Challenger and swapped the forks for the bucket. I used the winch to help take off the harrow and the bucket to fill in the large hole that unsuccessful attempts to push with the Kubota bucket had created. Then I put a choker chain on the Kubota and hooked the winch cable to it and spooled out a couple of hundred feet of cable. I used a 20 foot recovery strap around a tree and a 20 foot chain hooked to that and the front axle of the Challenger. I had a pretty straight pull. Being a foolish old guy, I put the Kubota in it's lowest gear and locked the differential leaving it to drive itself then went over to the winch. The winch when new was supposed to have 10,000 lbs of pull. It is still pretty powerful. I revved up the Challenger and pulled on the cord. The Kubota came forward 4 feet and dove into the soft muddy ground and popped out like a cork. The rear did the same and maybe it was the laws of physics or perhaps Jesus took the wheel, but the tractor took a hard left going up the path instead of straight into the next wet field. I hoofed it over and took the Kubota out of gear.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Wow. Great idea, when you are alone, a man's gotta do what a man's gonna do. ONly other thing I would have tried is strapping a shot log/2x4 to the rear tires and seeing if that would get it out sans winch cause I don't have one.

Glad you got it out, now about that disc...