What's your hoe doing?

[aighead]

Nice T-Town! Good for you and Merry Christmas in your new house!

It sounds like 90% of backhoe work is either knocking over trees or burying livestock.

 

[T-town]

Bite your tongue

Sorry Swetz...... I really jinxed you back in the fall when I talked about some dry weather ..... I think we've had 90% wet weekends since??..... oh well.. maybe that will translate into a dry spring for ya to get that digging done next season??
Think you may be right on that Aighead....... and next year for me will be a lot of 'yard' work..... should have a few nice burn piles when all said and done.

I did use the 'ol girl' to move a heavy chest out of storage and into the garage.

and we can leave you with one snowy day a few back...

 

[Swetz]

Sorry Swetz...... I really jinxed you back in the fall when I talked about some dry weather ..... I think we've had 90% wet weekends since??..... oh well.. maybe that will translate into a dry spring for ya to get that digging done next season??

No worries!

My fingers are crossed that 2024 will be the year my shop is up. I plan to retire in the next 4 to 6 months. At that point I will be in PA most of the time. I am confident that once I get the water under control, I will be fine. Getting the water under control while it is all mud is not very possible.

 

[NH575E]

No worries!

My fingers are crossed that 2024 will be the year my shop is up. I plan to retire in the next 4 to 6 months. At that point I will be in PA most of the time. I am confident that once I get the water under control, I will be fine. Getting the water under control while it is all mud is not very possible.

Congrats on retiring. I highly recommend it but try to enjoy some time recreating.

After I retired I thought I was going to have to get another job so I could get some rest. I have been slowing down a bit lately but still not getting enough time relaxing and projects are building up again.

 

[rumblecloud]

No worries!

My fingers are crossed that 2024 will be the year my shop is up. I plan to retire in the next 4 to 6 months. At that point I will be in PA most of the time. I am confident that once I get the water under control, I will be fine. Getting the water under control while it is all mud is not very possible.

I feel your angst with the water. I've bitched about it here before. I bought The Beast in April of this year for the very purpose of trenching to help drain off some of the water. I haven't even been able to get out on the property for fear of sinking in up to the axles...

After I retired I thought I was going to have to get another job so I could get some rest....

Sounds so familiar.
Sometimes I do miss getting up at 6:00AM and driving 60 or so miles into work everyday......like NEVER.

 

[Swetz]

Congrats on retiring. I highly recommend it but try to enjoy some time recreating.

Thanks NH575E!

I will not miss sitting at a computer 10 hours a day! That, and the fact that the bean counters have devised a way to have a spreadsheet for everything...even tracking spreadsheets . Recently my boss became visibly enraged when I told her that I do not need a spreadsheet to know what I need to do...yea, not gonna miss it. The new world of technical training is for the computer geeks, not those that can do, and I am glad I am not just starting out because I wouldnt make it!

 

[NH575E]

Thanks NH575E!

I will not miss sitting at a computer 10 hours a day! That, and the fact that the bean counters have devised a way to have a spreadsheet for everything...even tracking spreadsheets . Recently my boss became visibly enraged when I told her that I do not need a spreadsheet to know what I need to do...yea, not gonna miss it. The new world of technical training is for the computer geeks, not those that can do, and I am glad I am not just starting out because I wouldnt make it!

I use to enjoy that stuff. 25 years ago I was managing a stockroom and vehicle fleet for a University Science Dept. My boss also wanted all that info documented and sent me to a two day class on Excel. I came back and built a spreadsheet for the vehicle fleet using macros that made my job so easy a caveman could manage it. All I had to do was enter amounts from receipts one time and it moved and calculated everything to the different sheets with a final calculation of cost per mile. I had fun learning how to do it and my boss ate it up. I ended up being called upon to help her and our accountant every time they hit a snag using the program.

I finally moved to their machine shop where I got to design and fabricate research equipment and tools. My last 15 years of work was a joy up until the end. Things got to be a hassle with regulations and crap in my final year working so I retired out at 65. My original plan was to work till 70 but I haven't missed any meals.

 

[aighead]

Excel is incredible but I don't blame anyone for not liking it or wanting to learn it.

 

[Swetz]

Excel is incredible but I don't blame anyone for not liking it or wanting to learn it.

Please do not misunderstand what I said. I have been using Excel for about 20 years. Have built some handy spreadsheets to track my students thru their apprentiship, while honoring the time portion of the union contract. Also use it for my college students. I dont have to figure a thing, as the formulias that I put in calculate their final grades based on the %ages that I assign...all good stuff!

What is a total waste of time is creating a spreadsheet that we have a meeting to update every other week for 2 hours, when first of all, I could care less what others do, and second of all, I know what I need to do. Yea, our spreadsheet has a little bar that highlights based on %age complete...WASTE OF TIME....Ok, I am done ranting...LOL

 

[Oxbow]

I used Quatro-Pro in the late 80s-early 90s to track trucking expense. I was SO excited that I could have a sheet for the quarter and then complile the year on another sheet. It made for effortless end-of-year work for tax preparation!

 

[rumblecloud]

Back in the early days of interwebbing when Al Gore and I invented the internet, one of the things i had to do was build the initial keyword search spreadsheets Ford vehicles -- thousands of search words and phrases. Although it was interesting learning, I also learned to dislike it a lot.

 

[Verno]

Sucks all that Training really don't help with b*****d broken down tractors.
Maybe it Does!
Re-sell, here you go 1 sheet.
Me, here you go, my bulging folder!

 

[aighead]

So, I have this q-tip tree near the end of my driveway. It's really just a big wind lever and I looked at it a couple days ago when it was gusting to 50+ mph. We also park our cars pretty well in line with where it would blow over.



I hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to the lean until it got windy, but in order to not take my son's car out, I decided it was time to take her down, it was leaning nearly 20 feet out at the top, towards the house and our parking spots. I'd rather not take down live trees but this one had seen better days without any of the lower branches. It was maybe 60-70 feet tall.

As per usual, it's incredible what a backhoe can do and the speed at which it can do it. I pulled up to it, reached out, found the angle I was at wouldn't fell it really where I wanted, so I changed spots and gave a shove.



30 seconds later the tree is almost exactly where I wanted and not on top of any cars.

I hopped out of the hoe, grabbed the saw and about 20 minutes later had chunks that I could drag back to the fire pile. I spent about an hour or hooking up the straps and dragging limbs and trunks, now it's about cleaned up and I've got a glass of bourbon by my side.



As per usual, the hoe saved some dangerous/timely felling work that could have been done entirely with the chainsaw, but who knows where it would fall and with pushing it over the roots popped up with it too, along with some honeysuckle and other garbage trees that surrounded it.

It may sound silly but I give the hoe a nice pat on the a$$ every time I use her, and marvel at the work she can do. God bless a backhoe.

 

[rumblecloud]

Bravo!
I showed this to my wife -- who, BTW, was not a big fan of of the backhoe purchase -- to give her an idea of the capabilities of these machines.

So thank you for posting.

 

[HarleyHappy]

After I got done with the house, I was gonna sell the backhoe and keep the Kubota but made sure to set up backhoe with plow for snow, soooo now WE can’t get rid of it. Or so I told the wife. lol

 

[Verno]

Bravo!
I showed this to my wife -- who, BTW, was not a big fan of of the backhoe purchase -- to give her an idea of the capabilities of these machines.

So thank you for posting.

And not just for digging! My dwarf peach trees are getting too tall, needs pruning, ladder isn't safe but bucket is!
Backhoe has a 14' reach, will save me from pounding in 15-18 steel posts for my tomato and pepper cages every year.
Have a 10x10 shed I need to move, I'll put pipes under it to slide easier.
My patio is badly cracked and needs taken out.
Need more gravel in driveway.
No more carrying shingles up the ladder, just throw them in the bucket.
The possibilities are endless.

 

[aighead]

Yup! Keep in mind, as well, with this and about any other tree we have, in Dayton, Ohio, we managed to clean up that entire tree (minus a few branches that can be moved easily by hand or child) in about an hour. I strap as much of the downed tree together that I can and move the whole thing to either the future firewood or burn piles. Even if you were to buck up the whole thing and toss chunks into the bucket the time savings is incredible. I'll drag 30-40 foot long pieces of trunk or log wherever it needs to go.

My wife is a workhorse and has a few big projects she's taken on, the backhoe has saved her tons of time and energy. If you haven't gone through this whole thread there are a lot of good uses for the Swiss Army Knife of heavy equipment.

She came up with an idea for a landscaped hill in the front yard to block some view of the neighbors, it's been a few years, I need to post a newer photo of it.

 

[Swetz]

Here you go Aighead.

New Holland Backhoe Hydraulic Oil Cooler -- 85805957

Shop the New Holland Backhoe Hydraulic Oil Cooler for enhanced performance. Fits various models. Keep your backhoe running smoothly with this high-quality cooler.

www.brokentractor.com

 

[aighead]

More stuff I'll never install! And cross posting, I'm so confused! (not really)

 

[Swetz]

More stuff I'll never install! And cross posting, I'm so confused! (not really)

LOL