Some Great Seat Time Today

[RobS]

Took my tractor and my 14 year old son to Scout Camp today for a work day. I'll apologize ahead of time for no pics but I was workin'! I did take a couple of documentary pics of some underground stuff and if there is anything worthy in there I'll throw it up here.

Anyway, we had a great day. There were about 10 people there and a long list of projects. Because I had the backhoe, we were assigned to a drywell and a water project.

The drywell project was to replace a grey water drywell at one of the campsites. Pretty simple, it took us longer to find the old line than to dig the hole. We sunk a 55 gallon drum with holes and fed the wash-sink drain line to it. Filled with gravel and covered it. No problem.

Next was to replace a winter hydrant with a more conventional yard hydrant. The parts to repair the old hydrants were getting hard to find. We dug, and dug, and dug some more. Finally got to the bottom of the thing and got it out. The replacement they had on hand wasn't long enough so someone ran to town for a longer model. Long story short, we got it done. I was most impressed with Ralph, an 84 year old retired phone technician who was in and out of the hole in the ground more than me or my son!

All in all, had a great day. Some excellent seat time, good people, quality time with my son and he did enough service time to complete his Star Scout rank requirements. Next weekend we'll be at the same camp but with about 50 Cub and Boy Scouts for our annual Fall Family Camp. Photos for sure after that!

 

[RobS]

OK, there are some pics:

1) My son, studying the situation:

2) This is Ralph, an amazing individual:

3) Ariel shot of the drywell installation. I was standing on the backhoe controls panel. Do not try this at home!

4) Ground level survey of the site. This is Ralph again. Did I mention what an amazing individual he is? If I have half of his energy and physical ability at that age I'll be thrilled! When we finished, he drove down to the lake to do some fishing. What an inspiration...

Oh yeah, there were two other green machines in on the work. The camp owns a Gator and the 5xxx utility tractor. They also have a 2WD 770 w/ MMM that they offered to trade for my 790 TLB. I respectfully declined.

Again, a great day. Forget the economy, spend some time!!!

 

[ampsucker]

looks like a fun, worthwhile project! thanks for sharing!

we had a garage sale all day. boring ;-( but, got rid of a lot of stuff we needed to get rid of. i guess you can call it recycling or reuse, as it didn't end up in the landfill!


amp

 

[drivadesl]

RobS, looks like a great day for you, and particularly your son. I;m sure there were a lot of lessons learned. I mean, the gentleman Ralph, what an inspiration. Just seeing a man that age, working like that has got to leave quite an impression on the boys. My hats off to you, and the rest of the scouts. I'm a big supporter of this organization, and here again is just one more example of the leadership, and lessons in character it provides. Thanks for showing the pics and for the story.

 

[jinman]

Rob, I'd bet that they don't have enough badges to give away for all the service time Ralph has given. One look at him and you can see he thrives on doing instead of spectating. Thanks for posting the story and pictures.