# 1st ever tractor use event, almost bad



## andyvh1959 (Jul 1, 2015)

Back in 92 I rented a Ford 4WD contractor tractor with a backhoe and bucket, to develop the driveway fill on a rural property I owned. The rental outfit was two blocks from my in town home, but the property was six miles north of town. To save costs, I decided to drive the tractor out to my work site. It was late November, but unseasonably warm for east central Wisconsin. I was on site and working the driveway fill by 9am.

The "fill" was piles of gravel/stove/busted block I got free from then my father in law, he was the manager of a block plant and they needed a site to dump the waste product. So, on site, just past the culvert I had about four large piles to spread out to form the 30' wide by nearly 200' long driveway bed. I'd never operated a tractor, especially one with a bucket or backhoe. So I worked slow and steady to make sure I didn't damage anything. Well, the tractor could not get enough traction to push through the piles as I thought it could, or at least I didn't know the tranny/drive selections to get the work done just by pushing into the piles.

Gotta clarify, this is on a fully wooded property, with developed properties on each side of my 30' wide strip of land that would be my access to the 3-acre wooded lot. Also, my lot abutted a corn field to the south and the natural slope of the land resulted in a lot of soft soil/loam and runoff into the area for my driveway. That's why I needed to build the fill the for the driveway. The soil, when damp, would easily give way just by walking on it.

So after not getting much done pushing into the piles I thought I'd get behind them and drag the fill back with the bucket edge. So I drove around the piles, and SUNK up to the axles, tires spinning and no motion, AND the midpoint of the tractor was moving closer to a tree. I got the bucket down and backhoe down, thinking I could "lift/move" the tractor out of the hole, but each only sunk in. NUTS! I buried this thing, I got no phone access (no cell phone back then), it'll need a bulldozer to get it out, and the rental outfit will charge me plenty to retrieve their tractor, and I got a LONG walk back to town.

I finally figured out the multiple tranny/drive settings, to get the lowest crawl 4WD reverse speed, set the throttle, and then hung myself off the furthest rear corner of the tractor at the tire that was getting some grip. Aaaaannnnnndddd, slowly it crawled out of the muck hole I buried it into, up to the axle centerlines. Back up onto the fill I had spread out, I did a bit more work and then headed back to town. *Lesson learned? Leave it to the professionals.* I later hired a guy with a small bulldozer. He easily accomplished what I wanted in a few hours for $400, and in fact did a lot more than I had hoped to accomplish. End result though was a solid stable bed for the eventual 200' driveway into the woods.

Anyone else got 1st tractor stories of events that made you remember, always?


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## BigT (Sep 15, 2014)

Great story Andy, thanx for sharing!


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## Hoodoo Valley (Nov 14, 2006)

Indeed.


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## bmaverick (Feb 20, 2014)

andyvh1959 said:


> Back in 92 I rented a Ford 4WD contractor tractor with a backhoe and bucket, to develop the driveway fill on a rural property I owned. The rental outfit was two blocks from my in town home, but the property was six miles north of town. To save costs, I decided to drive the tractor out to my work site. It was late November, but unseasonably warm for east central Wisconsin. I was on site and working the driveway fill by 9am.
> ...
> Anyone else got 1st tractor stories of events that made you remember, always?


Andy, Not really. I grew up on a farm, drove 8N, some forklifts and skidsteers before I was 14yo. 30 years later, got into a homestead, got a tractor, read up on it before jumping into the seat. Learned a few tricks from the neighbor down the road who had a model 2 levels below mine. Then started out on the adventure. Very happy with the tractor and all it can do. 

Now with that said, looking at your experiences, I would have asked someone at the rental place for a demo of all the features. Even a copy of the pages out of the operations booklet to ensure safe and practical use. 

Do you still own the property? How do you remove the snow? Did you get a tractor of your own? I'm in Beloit-WI. It's actually been warm for nearly the last 2 weeks.


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## andyvh1959 (Jul 1, 2015)

Hi. My mistake at that time to not have the rental place give me a quick training, but I figured it out. No longer own the property, I developed the property to sell it, it was about six miles due north of Appleton. Interesting though, for all my efforts of building the driveway base, and even setting the 30' culvert over a gravel base 10' wide, 30' long and 4' deep, the present owner that built a house there and did the near 400' blacktop driveway has had no issues with frost heaving, no cracked apron over the culvert, no issues with heavy propane trucks coming up the driveway after the frost goes out. So I think I did well to prep the area for the driveway.

I live in Green Bay now, walking distance to Lambeau.


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