Normal start to Morning
My day started normally, at about 7 am with animal chores. I fed the goats, and cleaned their house and yard. Then I let them graze outside their yard for a while.
When I pulled up in the tractor with a load of fresh cut branches, they raced back into their yard to enjoy their treat.
I also let the chickens out into their run, and cleaned up after them.
Maybe I should brush mow the fence line…
The morning chores had been done quickly, so I thought I should get some other stuff accomplished. I have been meaning to go down an overgrown section of fence with the bush mower. I actually drove by the opening the other day without seeing it, it has become so overgrown.
Things started out ok…
Everything was going fine. I went down a steep hill and across a muddy section at the bottom. However, I could not make it up the other side of the gully, because it was too steep.
No problem, I turned around and headed back.
When I hit the muddy section I got stuck!
This is how far we needed chain and cable to reach to tractor 
You can see the skid marks behind the tractor where I couldn’t make it up the hill
Called for help.
My son in law was home, so I woke him up and begged for assistance. He is a truck driver and really handy with this sort of thing, so I was confident he could get the tractor out.
I took a couple of photos of the tractor while I was waiting for help.
We tried everything…
- We used the bucket to lift the front wheels out of the clay mud, but ended up digging an even deeper hole, that quickly filled with water
- We pushed boards and fence posts under the tires trying to get traction
- We even tried putting some chain link fence under the tires.
By this point the tractor was stuck up to the axels in sucking clay mud. It was well and truly stuck. The fence posts completely disappeared into the mud!
I should have taken some more photos to show how much worse things got…
Called in the big guns…
I called a tow truck. And then we waited… and waited.
It was 11:30 AM when I called for the tow. They finally arrived at 7:30 pm. By that point the clouds had rolled in and a thunder storm was about to start.
The tow truck could not go down that big hill… and his winch cable wasn’t long enough to reach the tractor. Luckily our neighbour was home and had a few lengths of chain we were able to borrow.
Just as the rains started, the tow truck was able to pull the tractor out. Then the skies opened up and it poured!
Lesson learned
Next time I will walk it first…
I’m just glad I wasn’t home alone when I got stuck!
2 comments