Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Close Call: lesson well learned

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!