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THis week.
SIL is building a pond. Rented the equipment, hired a retired friend that has done LOTS of them to run the dozer. Hired me for the wage I am worth to run the track hoe. SIL is driving the dump.

Been 40 yrs since I ran heavy equipment except for a couple of days at a time helping someone. Never ran anything this big.
Used to run a 4 stick backhoe. This one has 2 wiggle sticks, a cab w/ heater.
Never had that.

Anyway fun week.

It should be lots of fun to go digging in the dirt again as you did when you were a kid, except on a much grander scale.

As they say, big boys, big toys.

Have fun and hope you dig up some buried treasure!!

One summer in high school I was hired by a rancher out here to clear mesquite. He had rented a big ol' excavator... not sure what size, but it's the big one that you normally see out doing work. That was a good time!

My last day today. Dam is nearly done. Road to the pond needs some more. Today I am digging a couple of deep holes for winter Crappie & catfish..
At 63 now I hope I am around to catch somebig ones.
Looks like about 2ac surface area when full & 12 ft deep. Crappie & catfish holes will be as deep as I can reach.

This is the perfect time of year to set that up. The Christmas trees you'll need for some good cover for the crappies will be readily available in another couple of weeks.

I will remind SIL about that. We have a few stumps to roll back in.

Today is my last day.
Tomorrow I get ready for Sunday & a CHL class Sat.

Tried once to run a small dozer to push out some stumps from a field we were clearing. Small dozer, big stumps. Guy we hired to do the dozer work was having what looked like an easy time of it so I asked and he was nice enough to let me give it a try. A few instructions and 10 minutes of trying and the first stump was still hanging on. As I got down from the dozer he said "don't worry about it man, some people got it and some people don't".

Life lesson right there in the dirt.

20 something years ago I was outting a septic tank in. I rented a back hoe with a bucket on the front and a skid loader. My wife challenged me with, "Are you sure you can do this?" I said, "All those guys do is sit up there and push levers."

Well a day and a half later, after turning over the back hoe and having to right it with hydraulic jacks and come-alongs, I was so beaten up and sun burned I couldn't get out of bed. Had to miss two shifts at the station.

The meaness of this is, every time we pass someone working one of these jewels, my wife likes to point and say, "Look at him, he's just sitting there pushing levers." Twenty years later and she still hits me with that.

Yes & the Lord blessed me w/ runnin machines. He sure did not bless me w/ plumbin, mechanicin, electricin, acedemicin, computerin & the such like.