BrokenTrack
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2018
- Messages
- 1,422
- Location
- Maine
- Tractor
- Tractors, Skidders, Bulldozers, Forestry Equipment
My wife and I decided to sell a couple of houses, so I was just finishing up getting them ready to sell when a friend stopped by and said he needed some help. He has had a terrible time getting workers this year for his Heavy Excavating business, and said he needed someone to mow the sides of the road. He has got an Alamo Boom Flail mower on a 4430 John Deere 4X4 tractor, and knew I was not doing much and wondered if I would mow a few towns for him. I thought about it for 2 seconds and said I would.
I have been mowing now for a week, and it is a pretty good job. I do not even know how much I am getting paid because we never talked about that...I mean, it is mowing the sides of the road. I like it because the towns we work for hire a boom mower to mow to the treeline, and I have always been a fan of pushing back Maine's every growing trees next to the road.
It is slow going, 4 miles per hour, but you have your hands full on that 3rd pass, reaching out 20 feet into the ditch, swerving around telephone poles, signs, mail boxes, guy wires, tires, bikes, trees, etc, all the while following the in and out sloped ditches on contour. But it makes a huge difference when you are done.
Most people wave, or give you a thumbs up because they like being able to hit the brakes before deer jump out into the road because they can now see them, or see out of their driveways since the weeds and trees are beat back, but I have also got screamed at twice, and even got the finger once from a woman. If a person has a nice front yard, I will assess the situation and try to make the place look a good as I can by mowing the ditch, or leaving it alone depending what they have for flowers, but this woman had planted apple trees within the right of way. I was taking them out on my first pass, and my boom mower is only 6 feet wide...they had no right to be there. There is a place for trees, and a place not to have trees, and 6 feet from the edge of the road is not a place to have apple trees.
I love it mostly. It is just me, "my tractor" and the grass, and I calculated that I mow about 35 acres per day, with about 250 acres to mow this summer. It is a flail mower so maintenance is easy, checking knives morning and at noon, and carrying shackles, pins, cotter keys and knives on the tractor. And my friend has a full-time mechanic so when something breaks, he is a call away to come and fix the problem. Believe it or not, traffic is not that bad, and most people watch out for me because I cannot watch out for them, but there are a few downsides to this job too.
The worst is the ticks. I carry tick repellent and douse myself before changing the knives as ticks are EVERYWHERE on that mower. Another bad thing is the "pucker factor". A boom mowers creed is that no grass is worth mowing that causes a roll over, but at the same time people afraid of rolling tractors over need not apply for mowing the sides of the road. Yesterday I mowed an old town dump and I had to brace my left leg against that fender to keep from toppling out of the seat. I kept the mower extended out as a counterbalance, but almost pooped my pants on the back-swath. That was because my boom mower had to be on the downhill side doing that, and there was a woodchuck hole, and a tree I had to pick my mower up and over, all the while down in the mud. I thought I was going over several times.
But overall I like it, and I try to do a good job. I try to mow as far back as I can, and even on minor roads...driveways really...that the towns maintain...I treat just as I do the main highways, so that the roads look good when I am done. I have to, I am a profession boom mower operator now!
I have been mowing now for a week, and it is a pretty good job. I do not even know how much I am getting paid because we never talked about that...I mean, it is mowing the sides of the road. I like it because the towns we work for hire a boom mower to mow to the treeline, and I have always been a fan of pushing back Maine's every growing trees next to the road.
It is slow going, 4 miles per hour, but you have your hands full on that 3rd pass, reaching out 20 feet into the ditch, swerving around telephone poles, signs, mail boxes, guy wires, tires, bikes, trees, etc, all the while following the in and out sloped ditches on contour. But it makes a huge difference when you are done.
Most people wave, or give you a thumbs up because they like being able to hit the brakes before deer jump out into the road because they can now see them, or see out of their driveways since the weeds and trees are beat back, but I have also got screamed at twice, and even got the finger once from a woman. If a person has a nice front yard, I will assess the situation and try to make the place look a good as I can by mowing the ditch, or leaving it alone depending what they have for flowers, but this woman had planted apple trees within the right of way. I was taking them out on my first pass, and my boom mower is only 6 feet wide...they had no right to be there. There is a place for trees, and a place not to have trees, and 6 feet from the edge of the road is not a place to have apple trees.
I love it mostly. It is just me, "my tractor" and the grass, and I calculated that I mow about 35 acres per day, with about 250 acres to mow this summer. It is a flail mower so maintenance is easy, checking knives morning and at noon, and carrying shackles, pins, cotter keys and knives on the tractor. And my friend has a full-time mechanic so when something breaks, he is a call away to come and fix the problem. Believe it or not, traffic is not that bad, and most people watch out for me because I cannot watch out for them, but there are a few downsides to this job too.
The worst is the ticks. I carry tick repellent and douse myself before changing the knives as ticks are EVERYWHERE on that mower. Another bad thing is the "pucker factor". A boom mowers creed is that no grass is worth mowing that causes a roll over, but at the same time people afraid of rolling tractors over need not apply for mowing the sides of the road. Yesterday I mowed an old town dump and I had to brace my left leg against that fender to keep from toppling out of the seat. I kept the mower extended out as a counterbalance, but almost pooped my pants on the back-swath. That was because my boom mower had to be on the downhill side doing that, and there was a woodchuck hole, and a tree I had to pick my mower up and over, all the while down in the mud. I thought I was going over several times.
But overall I like it, and I try to do a good job. I try to mow as far back as I can, and even on minor roads...driveways really...that the towns maintain...I treat just as I do the main highways, so that the roads look good when I am done. I have to, I am a profession boom mower operator now!
