He left as soon as he changed out of his travel clothes to help Butch put the bush hog on his tractor, so Butch could bush hog the next door farm that we help manage. He started yesterday and finished up today. The photo above was taken at the Harvest Moon: you can see that the area isn't that overgrown. It looks pretty good, really, though not groomed for the last year. The grass and brambles had grown up: Isaiah, below, gives perspective on how tall the growth was.
After nine hours of bush hogging, the land looked like this.
I imagine Butch is pretty sore tonight. Phil and I drove around in the truck, and it was a bumpy ride!
We've also taken delivery of two large purchases.
Right after Phil helped Butch, he went and borrowed Butch's little skid steer, so he could unload this year's batch of minerals. (If you don't remember our exciting experience last year, check out "Why the Bobcat Popped a Wheelie".)
The most traumatic thing happened right at the start. And it wasn't bad for us at all. The driver decided to try to back into our driveway, as you can see below. Now, it wasn't as long a truck as last year, but it was still pretty good sized. He was doing a great job, but then lurched forward and crashed into the opposite bank. (Phil wonders if he thought the grasses were just grasses, without anything of substance behind? It could be.)
Although it was a rather light thunk, it did bend his fender enough that it touched his wheel as he drove. Too bad. And he had come in facing one direction, but went to the end of the road, turned around and came back so he could unload without having to work against the slope of the road. It's cool.
For our part, though, like being a second-time mom, being a second time mineral-receiver was so much easier!
First of all, we knew that the skid steer couldn't handle 3000 pound pallets. And we knew that WE don't much like dealing with 3000 pound totes, even after they're on the ground. Lancaster Ag, that blends our minerals, had a great solution.
Not only could they put our minerals into 50 pound sacks (for only an additional $50 per ton: really unbelievable!). They also stacked two 1500 pound pallets on top of each other, as you can probably just make out, above. This way, we got the best rate we could on shipping, and it just took a little longer to unload, since Phil first had to unload the top pallet, and then the bottom one.
Ten thousand pounds of custom blended minerals, with Joe for scale.
***
Today we received delivery of much of the fencing materials for the neighboring land.
And just to brag on my favorite shipper for a moment, this truck was the first we've had that actually parked on the side of the road, rather than the middle. This was actually a good thing, because while both last year's mineral delivery and this year's lasted about an hour, and neither had a single car pass in all that time, we did have a car pass at the end of today's delivery. So kudos to the friendly, efficient driver and his impressive parking skills.
What cracked me up about this delivery was that the driver, rather than using a pallet jack, simply attached a sling to the skid steer (bless Butch who graciously let us borrow it a second day!) and had Phil pull
and pull
and pull
the pallet to the back of the truck. (The pallet must have been close to the front of the truck!)
Then he unloaded two more pallets and the driver was off.
The amount of high tensile wire astounded me.
***
In other news, while we were watching the driver run into the road bank yesterday, Joe fell out the window next to the bunk beds. Phil and I had no idea until the younger boys came up the driveway and we saw that Joe had a very red face. "He cried a bit," explained Abraham, "but now he's okay." (There had been screen there, but I'm guessing Joe was leaning on it and popped the staples out.)
Dirtiness, though, is nothing to Joe. All the boys played happily in the well tailings almost all day, but Joe was, by far, the dirtiest.
Wow! As you told me on the phone, that next-door farm really does look like a park, Amy, now that it has been bush-hogged!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the fun photos. I particularly enjoy the series about p-u-u-lllll-ing the pallet to the back of the FedEx truck!
Very nice.
And, boy! does your portion of Virginia look pretty at this time of year. Beautiful light.