This Bank is KILLING Me….

[MossRoad]

My son weed whacks a 1/4 mile long steep bank every 10 days for one of our customers.
There’s still lots of young ones out there that’ll work.

We’ve got a 19 year old kid for the summer doing some menial maintenance work. He is stupendous. Shockingly good worker. Quite refreshing.

 

[Midniteoyl]

Ha.. My youngest and 2 g'kids were those that absolutely hated mowing and yard work. Now all three make it a point to come visit just to sit on the tractor for hours 'relaxing' while mowing for me..

 

[Creamer]

View attachment 753705

This hill is killing me. A little steeper than it looks. I have a JD 1023 - not enough juice for a boom mower or a flail. You can see I have easy access from the top. Been weedeating this mess for five years.

What if I took tow behind mower like you use with an ATV - hitched it to the back of the 1023 - and just backed up to the edge letting the mower drop down over the bank? Put a bit longer extension on it if I needed to. Then work my way across up and down. Is this a really smart idea or a really stupid one? I’ve been known to have both kinds.

I have mowed a slope that steep with my Deines front deck. I am not going to lie though - I did not like it. It was on a commercial lot I own and there was no good reason they left it so steep but they did and I chose not to change it - it was about three passes high and 100' long.

The thing i hated the worst was the feeling I was going to slide out of the seat so I got a high sided seat that I would not slide out of. The mower will not roll but will slide down the slope if it is too wet. I also changed mower tires to AT-101s versus the turf tread - they hold the sidehill much better. The third thing I did was lift the mower deck just slightly - not enough to actually lift the deck but to get a little more weight on the drive wheels or I would lose traction on the upper wheel and have to turn down the hill.

Another option that someone has mentioned is mowing at an angle. My mower may not climb the slope forward but it will back up anything i game to stay sitting on it for - so you can go backwards at an angle up the slope and forward down the slope. It definitely feels much better than mowing sideways but also takes longer.

 

[Creamer]

View attachment 753705

This hill is killing me. A little steeper than it looks. I have a JD 1023 - not enough juice for a boom mower or a flail. You can see I have easy access from the top. Been weedeating this mess for five years.

What if I took tow behind mower like you use with an ATV - hitched it to the back of the 1023 - and just backed up to the edge letting the mower drop down over the bank? Put a bit longer extension on it if I needed to. Then work my way across up and down. Is this a really smart idea or a really stupid one? I’ve been known to have both kinds.

Another option is a sickle bar mower that allows the bar to float up and down and then do one pass from the bottom and another from the top. The road sign will get in the way though.

 

[Hay Dude]

We’ve got a 19 year old kid for the summer doing some menial maintenance work. He is stupendous. Shockingly good worker. Quite refreshing.

Kids today lack strong leadership from adults. I have found if you give them orders and a task and they might grumble, but deep down inside they like it. Bring them something cold to drink and show them a little appreciation for their accomplishments and you’ll have them in the palm of your hand.
I was a HS football coach for decades and my kids I coached that see me later in life thank me for making them do difficult, grueling work in the summer heat.
They think the ones that didn’t do what they did missed out on learning what it is to be a man.

The fable that ”kids don’t want to work today” is BS. They want to work hard.

Its the adults that have the problem. They want their kids to be their friends and don’t want to hurt their feelings or give them tasks to do that are difficult.

 

[Loaderman22]

I recently drove by a guy mowing a situation very very similar to this... He had a push mower with the handle removed, and a rope tied to the back somehow. He was lowering it down the slope and pulling it back up.
I didn't say it was a good idea, just something I saw, and me and the fellas in the car had a pretty good laugh.