As Mr B said, yesterday was spent helping a friend who had two rather large trees come down in his yard–right onto his septic field. So with tractor, chainsaws, log tongs, chains, and bucket forks, we set out first thing in the morning.
I ran the tractor while Mr B took to the tree with chainsaw in hand. There were several other folks that showed up to help as well–kind of like a barn raising, but with a different objective. Many hands make light work, but a tractor in the mix never hurts either. With the forks on the front, I was hauling upwards of 1000 pounds a load and I ran for pretty much 7 hours–that’s a lot of tree and that was just the branches, most of the time. I did bend, then lost, the reinforcing turnbuckle and chain that Mr B put
on the bucket but it was proof of concept so he’s now making a new
one that’s a tad bit stronger.
Took a half hour for lunch provided by the homeowner (definite class/nice folks and much appreciated–they also brought water around every hour or so).
It wasn’t all tractor work–I climbed up and down to load up the bucket and I did find one of the holes in the septic field caused by the tree falling–unfortunately by putting my foot up to mid-calf in it. Fortunately I have one pair of shoes that’s only for outdoor work, and I was wearing them. Not sure if I’ll ever go near them again, but they were solid leather and waterproof (two really good things in this instance). At least it was towards the end of the field so it wasn’t as horrible as it could have been.
The team that couldn’t be there yesterday is taking over today so we can get some stuff done around our house. I was able to help one gentleman–he was a solid worker, but I noticed he’d stopped sweating and got him to stop, rest, and hydrate. Lessons learned from detassling and reinforced by working with Mr B often.
Today it’s catch-up around our homestead and maybe a nice nap this afternoon–not used to that kind of work like I used to be. But it was a good day.
Midwest Chick's Place 
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