Today I rented a Bobcat front loader for some pond remedial work from my neighbor, and it nearly ended in disaster. I was filling in some low areas on my newly built dikes when I started to sink in near the water's edge with a full load of fill in the bucket. The frontloader started to tilt to the water and I was stuck and couldn't back out. I got out and commenced to unload the bucket with a shovel to reduce the weight. I got back on but only dug in deeper as I tried to back out.

I called the neighbor over who drives truck for a living and is one of those guys that can do anything with heavy equipement including repair it himself. The first words out of his mouth were "holy -hit" you really are stuck. Anyway he pushed down with the bucket and was able to back out somewhat only to have the frontloader almost tip into the steepsided pond. It was really, really close! One more inch in the direction of the water and he would have tipped in.

My pond bank has a steeper grade than 1:1 (the heavy clay can hold it), and if he would have tipped into the water he and the frontloader would have been headed to 10 feet of water really fast! Can you imagine having a bar holding you in with a seatbelt, and on top of that you could be pinned by the frontloader underwater in mud?

I can assure you once he was safely out of there I praised the Lord. The Lord was with us today! I told my neighbor I was going back to using a wheelbarrel and to take the frontloader back and I paid him for the time I used and more. Yikes!

I now respect equipment and the danger it can put you in more than ever. If I have to haul 40 wheelbarrel loads to the ponds edge I would rather do that! No more monkeying around steep pond banks with a front loader!

Please be careful out there with heavy equipment. If it seems like it could be dangerous it probably is!

Cecil, I've pulled dumb stunts like that on too many occasions. I almost learned the hard (lethal and permanent) way why tractors with front end loaders need liquid in the rear wheels and 4 wheel drive. Some of the stuff I've done with boats and motorcycles should make me uninsurable. Guys like you and me are why insurance premiums are so expensive. I won't even go into how much fun I've had by playing with horses, bulls, rattlesnakes and narrow minded goats.
However, I think I've learned more by sheer terror than by reading the owners manual. BTW, if you think bobcats are dangerous, don't ever get sideways with a woman and her lawyer.

Dave,

Well than knock it off! Your posts are too valuable to have you no longer post here!

I've heard about women and divorce lawyers and hope I never have to deal with that. My wife says I'm "stuck" with her and I tell her no, it's the other way around -- she's "stuck" with me. Hope it always stays that way.

Glad you're both OK.

My wife bought me a sickle bar mower for the tractor over the Winter so I "can mow around that damn pond without getting so close to the water!"

I think I'll go give her a hug.

Hey Cecil, I'm not talking about my present wife but the entry level one that I started out with.

Man, Cecil!! Glad you're OK. If you would've broken your back you would have had to hire me to sample your perch through the ice next winter.

Bruce,

I think it would have been more serious than that. You could have bought the farm for a secondary operation after I "bought the farm."

If you want to come out this way this winter and sample the perch you're welcome to.

Seriously...my neighbor just offered to let me use his front-end loader and I (inexperienced as I am) told him I'd take him up on it.

You just changed my mind.

Be careful! I found out the hard way that tractors and bobcats don't float. Got a rented tractor stuck twice ( over the axle ) and a rented bobcat stuck once. Luck for me my father-in-law has a tracked-loader. On the positive side, digging out the tractor kind of forced me to enlarge the pond, what with the 10' wide by 100' trench he had to excavate to reach the tractor.

"entry level wife".... that's funny...cracked me up.

Cecil,

With a small dozer and a back-hoe/front-end loader and an engineer's mentality ( I can do anything), I've had a number of close calls also. One of them was very similar to yours. However, we press on...and try to minimize the risks, realize they can never be eliminated, but don't let 'em stop you.

Cecil:

Right on, I hear ya......I've been placing nearly 400 tonnes of rip rap rock along the east shoreline the last 2 years with a wheel barrow along the waters edge for the same reason. However, I'm will trade by loader tractor for a skidsteer hopefully later this spring to continue with my less aggressive slope along the lake and the back of the house creating my lined koi ponds and streambeds circulating back into the lake. Safety is paramount for us all..........

Rowly

THEO.WERE DID YOU GET SICKLE AND HOW MUCH DO THEY COST.I'M IN BAD NEW OF ONE,BANKS ON MY POND ARE WAY TO BAD.I'VE LOOKED FOR THEM AND CANNOT FIND.

Fish:

The Missus picked up the sickle bar off a friend of the family who was moving to a bigger farm half a county away and gave her first refusal on everything he wasn't taking with him before he held his farm sale. She got the "cousin" price of $250 for the sickle bar (with some extra parts-teeth and bars) and a spike-toothed harrow.

I believe new sickle bars have been OSHA'd to death (PTO shafts AND exposed teeth) and you will have to try to find one from a farm sale or used equipment dealer. My wife and our friend based the price on this one from the range of used sickle bar prices given by a local dealer ($300 - $600).

And then there was the day I drove a tractor across a rain soaked pressure treated wood bridge. The problem was that the disk was loaded with mud, the front end was light, and the front wheels would not bite the wet wood as I tried to correct my direction. The front end went off the side of the bridge, and so did I. Ended up in the creek, with the tractor wedged over the top of me.

Read this yesterday and chuckled about what I have done in the past and so last night I'm cutting a high bank with the box blade and looked to see what the dog was barking at sure enough put the front wheel over the edge and right into the muck! Oh well thank goodness for the 4X4 and a come-a-long to get it back out.

Bob

Cecil,

Glad you're ok. You have taken the first step to becoming an "operator". I know the nauseated feeling that you had, have had it a couple times myself. Like the time I almost drove my excavator under the power lines with the boom up. Or the time I accidentally engaged the dozer while standing on the track (can you say treadmill?). Haven't repeated either mistake, but I wonder what's next.

Don't stop now, a few more close calls and you'll really be dangerous.

I dumped my brand new Kabota tractor into a pond I was cleaning out. Lucky for both of us it was dry. After a lot of laughter the tractor store told me I should have jumped off the opposite way of the roll. Good advice.

Gosh Stony don't leave us hanging! Obviously you got out but how did you get out? Did you need help or were you not pinned bad enough to get our by yourself? Did you get hurt?

Stony wins for the scariest situation in my mind. A guy about a mile away from me lost it last year, bush-hogging along the creek bank and had the tractor fall in and flip over on him. He died of "positional asphyxiation" (tractor on top would not let him inhale). He had buried his wife a week or two before, the kids were grown and gone; nobody found him for a couple of days.

I think Stony was damn lucky, thank God.

Fish,

Keep an eye on Ebay for sickle bar mowers, sooner or later one will come up for sale close to you. Also, place an ad at the feed stores or Co-Ops. Check old sales on ebay for general price ranges.

Good luck,

cecil it sounds like you are on your way to being a real pro. I think i've gotten everything I own stuck at least once. The worst was a backhoe that required a semiwrecker to pull it out. keep up the good work but be careful.

I found some sickle bar mowers on-line. First I found one in a 2003 John Deere brochure, but can't find it on their web site. Here is what I found:
http://www.wikco.com/befsbm.html
http://befco.com/products/hayequipment/sicklebar.html
http://www.ssbtractor.com/page3.html

These are just a few I found using Google. Also, farm auctions occasionally have some. I need to look into getting one for myself. I'd hate to sink my JD 4020!

"Like the time I almost drove my excavator under the power lines with the boom up."

I actually did that. Nephew stopped me after I hit them, but before they broke. I hit the lines with the boom hard enough that the lines swayed like crazy for a long distance. I held my breath as I lowered the boom and backed up as quickly as possible. I'm lucky the lines or poles didn't break and I apparently didn't connect two bad wires.

I also unloaded my trackhoe sideways off the trailer once. That was a bit too exciting for a while. The trailer I use (and would love to replace) doesn't disconnect from the semi. As a result, it is fairly tall. You drive up ramps in the back over the tires. There are a couple points above the tires where it is metal on metal with limited contact. Not good at any time and especially when the trailer isn't perfectly level and you have a light rain. In half a milisecond I went from going good to wondering how bad this was going to hurt / what damage it would do to I survived / what damage did it do / apparently none / I'm glad this has wide tracks! / how do I get the other track off / WOW I was lucky! I need a different trailer!

I still have that same ***** trailer; but I've purchased some heavy rubber matts that seem to help (while I keep looking for a different trailer) and I'm close to paranoid around power lines.

Actually, I can think of two other scary momments with that trackhoe. I've been lucky, but I'm getting better.

You guys are crazy. You should never take chances on heavy eqp.! It's just plain not smart.
I would never do anything that dumb, except the last time I was building a road around the steep south side of my pond. Not being too familiar with backhoe controls I gee'd when I should have haww'ed while pushing myself backwards. It was 30' to the bottom of my pond. The low side stabelizer was all that saved me. I only raised it out flat to the side in order to back up. I was perched on the high side stableizer almost completely verticle & afraid to move! Luckly I collected my senses & after rehersing in my mind which way to push the boom I was able to save me & the hoe.
It can happen so fast!

Sorry so late in responding. The tractor didn't pin me, just wedged in the ditch over me. I was in the bottom of the ditch where it was most narrow. Because the tractor went in sideways, it wedged in over the top of me. Had it gone in nose first, it would have made its way to the very bottom of the creek.

Well my experiences are not as scarey as some mentioned , but it took me 6 months to recover from a fall off an 8' ladder while filling a deer feeder i rigged to throw the feed in one direction.
After clamping the lid back on the 55. gal. drum i took one step down the ladder , shirt caught one of the clamps holding the lid on and we all went backwards toward the ground . As i was falling i managed to push the feeder away from me but hit the ground real hard .

Now have a real fish feeder I can fill without a ladder !

Oh ! have had to tie the mower off to my house deck to keep it out of the pond while waiting for help to pull it up the bank .

Also pulled the mower out of the pond with my truck once .

Just can't keep from trying to mow to close to the waters edge . Maybe i will learn someday ?

Have thought about renting heavy equipment for odd jobs but you guys have changed my mind , will hire it done.

Thank God none of you were hurt ! Harvey

Harvey,

You trying to use that mower as bait or structure??

Russ

Russ , LOL , It was almost structure .

If things had gone bad I was going to be the bait !

I rented a large backhoe once. I was running it for about 2 hours before I backed it up into my wifes car. I'm not allowed to rent heavy equipment anymore

Gainesjs, You can join Cecil and I in the NEED ADULT SUPERVISION CLUB. Sounds like we could take a lot of applications in this crowd.

i mow around 3 ponds with a john deere 5400 tractor. always feel unsafe. does any body know a rule of thumb for how steep safe to mow with a mid iize (60 horse) tractor? does the slope need to be 4 to 1 or is 3 to safe?

darrrell stringer

I used to mow around my pond with my JD 5300 until my neighbor went over sidways to end up upside down in 10 feet of pond water while mowing on his Kabota. It was a typical tractor accident in that he was underwater before he knew what was happening. Fortunately, he was buckled in and saved by his ROPS from being the bug on the windshield. He was able to unbuckle and swim out. He and I both use lawn tractors for mowing near our ponds now. As long as you mow side to side, sit on the high side, and don't play around at the waterline, it is safe.
Lou

Darrell, I think it's a good thing you always feel unsafe. Unsafe helps keep you careful, complacent makes you more likely to make a stupid mistake.

What is safe? I think this has a lot of variables. The lower the center of gravity, the safer you are (keep the mower deck down). The wider the wheel base, the safer you are (after 5 years or so with my MF230, I wised up and reversed the rims on the front wheels to spread the tires out 6" or so). Mostly these two are set by your tractor, so a switch to a different tractor (lower, smaller), as Lou pointed out, may be better (worst case scenario, it's less weight on top of you).

Soil/vegetation conditions are also a factor. My ground is very wet in Spring (LOTS of clay), usually finally drys out in August/September. So I start out far away from the banks and gradually mow closer all Summer long. Some wet years, I don't make it to the edge at all. I also do not mow the steeper slopes when the grass is wet; I don't want the tractor to start sliding sideways and then tip or go in the pond. My worst slopes are not at the pond, they're along the State Route in front (and every two years Ohio Dept. of Trans. makes them worse) but the pond is where I am most cautious.

Now I have a sickle bar (which I still need to try out) and the pond edge & dam mowing should be much safer.

My most dangerous cutting was on the back side of the dam. When it was built, nearly 50 years ago, the slope was made very steep on the back side. I cut it a couple of times with my tractor, but it was a heart-in-the-mouth operation getting the tractor back uphill each time. Now, nature has taken its course (nature in Alabama, anyway). I have a solid growth of kudzu on the back side. Trees don't stand a chance, there is no washing, and I never have to cut except at the crown to keep the stuff from creeping across the road.

Maybe there are other natural (well, the stuff is natural where it came from) ground covers which others can use near their water and on steep banks which will allow them to avoid cutting where it is dangerous.

Also, about 80% of my banks are left in woods, a treat for the eye and zero maintenance.

Finally, a bit off topic, let me propound a heresy. I had beavers when I bought the place 13 years ago and have them now. They have never done any damage to anything I cared about and they dam up the feeder streams, catching sediment behind their dams which would otherwise end up on the bottom of the pond. Sometimes the best cure is masterful inaction.
Lou 13.5 acres

Lou-When we bought our place it also came with beavers. There have been a few frustrations and inconveniences(trees across the driveway,one a poplar which took down our hydro pole and transformer one Friday at 4pm,etc) but the most continuing problem was the driveway culvert that they kept trying to plug. I finally rented a hoe and put in a second culvert about 2'below grade.(the original is a 24" that is 40'long about 10' down)I figured that they could now plug the old culvert and I could fill the resulting pond with bait minnows. Before they could do this, they cut down 3 of my neighbours little ornamental birch trees(they are native and we both have hundreds on our property but these were on his lawn and he had just moved up from the city)During the next month he shot every beaver he could find. That was 3 years ago and we are still beaver barren.Last summer I got my own little hoe and have been trying to plug that contrary culvert ever since. Three times I have had the water up to where I want it(I have cleared the brush from the valley,made a swimming area etc) I have plugged the pipe with rocks,clay,old polytarps,sticks etc but I just can't seem to do as good a job at it as those furry little rodents!