Just Getting To It

Just after hay season we noticed a tall fir tree at the edge of the bull pen that was looking a little peaked. The tree did not have robust looking limbs and some of the branches were turning from a vibrant green to a washed-out red. A few limbs were still green but as the heat of the summer ramped up the tree continued to decline.

Since it was right in the fence line and leaning toward the county road, Mike decided it was time to force the tree to come down before a wild storm did it for us. He wanted to direct the tree away from the road so it would fall safely into the bull pen with the four bulls safely on the other side of the divided pasture area.

Step one was to get the logging bulldozer from the far side of the river over to the bull pen. Getting across the river was not a problem with the stable crossing and low water flow this time of year. Moving across the county road was a bigger issue. The steel tracks of the dozer have wide cleats that would tear up the asphalt. We use old tires to cushion the road from the tracks (and before ya’ll start offering up your old tires for me to use, rest assured that I already have more than a plenty tires scattered around).

Marilyn and I were the designated tire movers and traffic flaggers. Once Mike was staged ready to go across, Marilyn and I put out orange cones and large stop signs on each side of where he needed to cross. Then we began shifting tires to right in front of the tracks for Mike to drive on. The track on each side of the dozer is more than 7 feet long and four to five tires make for enough of a cushion. As Mike inches forward, the tires that are beyond the back of the track need to be picked up and moved to the front of the track so he can continue across the road. It is like a frantic Chinese Fire Drill with Marilyn on one side and me on the other trying to let Mike move across will as little  hesitation as possible.

Once across and Mike was able to move up the rock driveway without cushions, Marilyn and I had to clear the road of all the tires, the cones and the stop signs to let traffic once again flow smoothly.

The tires were needed again near the bull pen gate where we had a cement slab poured for the stock trailer. With the trailer moved we used the tires to  protect the cement to let the dozer into the bull pen. It was a successful day of moving with only a cement block and a little corner of the slab that had gotten the brunt of the steel cleats, only inches made the difference with the tire placements.

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