[AT] Digging

[Billy Hood]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Robinson<mailto:robinson at svs.net> 


  He had brought another mini-excavator home before when he 
  was working at his house and dug a few holes for me at the same time. I 
  am constantly amazed at the amount and kind of work those things will 
  do. 

  Farmer, I rent and use mini's often and they are the slickest thing since sliced bread and drop seat underwear both.  Recently I had to clean ditches in a privite subdivision.  There was bank on one side and timber on the other. My Case 580 would have been too wide to cross the road and would be jockying move all the time.   Bobcat excavator made the job easy.  Ran down the road with the boom at right angles to the ditch and dumped the spoil in the trees on the other side. I was digging on top of buried phone cable that was not put in deep enough and I had great visibility.  Did about a mile and a half in under 6 hours.  But I can also relate that I have turned one over in a lake--set it back upright with neighbor's 3000 Ford, cable and snatch block on a large tree.  And no I was not making shim stock.



  It was a pleasure watching him digging with that excavator. He was only 
  about 16 when I bought my backhoe and picked up on running it in 
  minutes.

  I have operated backhoe since 1959 (Waggnor hoe and ldr on NAA Ford), but my son, 33 yo, can dig circles around me.  He started about age 11/12 and grew up on farm and construction equipment.  But he just has a finer touch than I do and I place him with any operator I have watched or hired.  Fathers can be proud even when our offspring show us up.  I can blame it on his being younger.  We had a JD 570 articulated motor grader loaned to us at our tractor show last Sept.  I grew up on Cat 12's with mechanical controls and could not operate the hydraulic fast controls on the JD good enough tdo dress the track and mix some more clay.  Brad just make it look easy.  Besides you could not stand up in the cab on that thing and operate.  Too all fangled new. 



  All but one of his crew 
  has been there long enough to know what needs to be done next but won't 
  do it until they are told. That is the reason those guys that were 
  working there when he started are now working under him... 

  Boring crew was working at the entrance to a pasture where we were working recently.  They had stopped about 10 am and when we went out for lunch, we asked and they said that they had not checked their diesel nurse tank and had no fuel to run the machinery.  Even admitted that they were not sure they had enough fuel to get the crew truck back to the shop.  Made me want to fire the foreman at least and it sure was not my crew.


  I remember my father referring to guys tearing stuff up as their 
  "being rough on rats". I don't know where that expression came from, has 
  anyone else ever heard it used?
  -- 
  Dad always said that the guy tearing up stuff could "tear up a railroad with a rubber hammer."

  Bear