Saturday
Apr182009
Sinking Feeling - Part 3
Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 5:47AM
You can assume there is a portion of this story omitted - both in terms of storytelling form as well as keeping the bounty of expletives off the web (there's enough of that out there anyhow). I mean - how can you blame me - watching my tractor and truck both sinking into a brown bubbling mess... I felt kinda like I was in a sci-fi movie with a mud monster.
In the interest of wrapping up this "sinking" story - we managed to get the floor jack from the barn situated into a mud trench I dug under the truck frame. Then as I attempted to jack the truck up - as each board under the jack was pushed into the mud, we kept adding boards until there was nowhere for them to go and the truck lifted up. Under each wheel as we performed this "uplifting" tactic, we placed 4' long sections of 2x8's... then hopped in the truck and drove away. Up until now the score was field 2 farmer 0... finally I had a point on the board!
The tractor turned into an effort of throwing board after board plus rocks and old rubber grooved floor mats into the holes... as I would rock the tractor back and forth, Kelli would pitch something else in a rut to keep me from sinking deeper. It became a battle of how much junk can the mud hold before the mud could hold no more... Unfortunately - as is demonstrated every single day - nature has the ability to adapt... and in this case that means generate more mud.
I was about ready to throw in the towel (except it was already in one of the ruts) and go buy a winch... when I put Kelli in the seat of the tractor. She was instructed to "step on the gas and don't stop". And with that - some superhuman feat of strength possessed me - and somehow I physically assisted in "lifting" the tractor from muck...
Kelli drove all the way back to the barn without stopping to look back... waving good bye as the seagulls started to come in to feast on the freshly revealed critters in the turned field.
In the interest of wrapping up this "sinking" story - we managed to get the floor jack from the barn situated into a mud trench I dug under the truck frame. Then as I attempted to jack the truck up - as each board under the jack was pushed into the mud, we kept adding boards until there was nowhere for them to go and the truck lifted up. Under each wheel as we performed this "uplifting" tactic, we placed 4' long sections of 2x8's... then hopped in the truck and drove away. Up until now the score was field 2 farmer 0... finally I had a point on the board!
The tractor turned into an effort of throwing board after board plus rocks and old rubber grooved floor mats into the holes... as I would rock the tractor back and forth, Kelli would pitch something else in a rut to keep me from sinking deeper. It became a battle of how much junk can the mud hold before the mud could hold no more... Unfortunately - as is demonstrated every single day - nature has the ability to adapt... and in this case that means generate more mud.
I was about ready to throw in the towel (except it was already in one of the ruts) and go buy a winch... when I put Kelli in the seat of the tractor. She was instructed to "step on the gas and don't stop". And with that - some superhuman feat of strength possessed me - and somehow I physically assisted in "lifting" the tractor from muck...
Kelli drove all the way back to the barn without stopping to look back... waving good bye as the seagulls started to come in to feast on the freshly revealed critters in the turned field.
The moral of the story is - no matter how stuck you are or how bad you think it is... it can, and usually will, get worse!
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