It’s Crunch Time!
Hello Friends! My schedule has become unpredictable as I've been taking trips to go to our property to begin preparations for our move to full time, off grid life. We will be moving soon and there is a lot that needs to be done. It’s getting to be crunch time so I’m going to cut back to posting once per week.
Here is a look at some of the things I’ve been up to, adventures had, and lessons learned!
We need to do some ground leveling to build, and we also need to do some more road work and the tractor is great, but not the best tool for the job. We’ve decided to put our tractor up for sale and purchase a skid steer. I have spent a lot of time back and forth to the property and also going out to look at, and pick up equipment that we need. We purchased a brush mower and log grapple bucket for the skid steer from an auction, so I had to travel several hours northeast to get that, then go several hours west to the property, then the next day we planned to drive several hours southwest from our property to pick up the skid steer. My big little 6 year old didn’t want to part and promised to be patient with the driving so he came along with me. In hindsight, I’m really glad he came!
When we arrived on the property with the trailer and the skid steer implements we bought, it was just starting to rain. We got the implements unloaded and took the truck through the part of our trail/lane that gets the most slippery so that we wouldn’t have to deal with that the next day. Unfortunately, we didn’t even make it that far! The 4 wheel drive isn’t working and I don’t know why. I hooked up to the tractor, put the booster seat in the driver’s seat and had my 6 year old steer the truck while I pulled it over the slick part. After that we thought we were good to go. It stormed pretty good that night and rained partway through the next day. After the rain had stopped, we thought we were good to go. However, there is one last steep hill to go up to get out onto the main road. It is well graveled but with the wet mud stuck to the tires, we didn’t quite make the truck up out of the last steep hill of the driveway. It only needed to go another six feet and we would have made it! I had to back down the hill and get another run. Unfortunately, I was paying more attention to the big trailer behind me and the front end of the truck slid off the edge of the narrowest part of the road close to the large culvert.
I’ve been teaching my kids the basics of driving from a young age. I didn’t learn anything about driving until it was time to start driver’s ed. I want my kids to already feel comfortable at the wheel when they get to that point. Also, you never know when a kid is going to need to drive a vehicle. This was one of those times! It was in neutral, but I knew I could trust my 6 year old to steer the truck while I was driving the tractor.
Even though it was frustrating to get stuck, it’s really nice to see so much water going through the culvert because I was told by our only difficult neighbors over and over that it wouldn’t work. It works well and without it the road would wash out every time it rains!
We were very stuck. So, I ran up the hill to where our tractor was sitting ready to pull us out. I got it running and started driving across the west end of our property because the truck was blocking the road, I had to go down the other trail where the next door neighbors live. Technically, that easement no longer exists but I was counting on them allowing me to go through because it was kind of an emergency and they are super cool people. I called to ask but they didn’t answer. I headed that way in hopes that I’d see them on the way, but I didn’t make it that far. I was driving in a higher gear because the tractor is very slow and we had already made an appointment to meet the guy we were buying the skid steer from. He had been holding it for us for almost a week and I was feeling rushed. Our neighbors who are supposed to share the easement road responsibilities also have an easement across the west end of our property. There is a brush pile there and instead of clearing it, they have been driving around it onto our pasture. Even though it’s kind of the top of the hill, that part of our land gets pretty soggy and they put some massive ruts in the mud there. I was trying to avoid those ruts but the front wheel slipped and went in. I’m not really sure what happened next. I felt the steering wheel yank hard to the left. Then it felt like the tractor was just sinking. It stopped moving and I realized I was stuck in the mud. I looked back and to my horror, I saw the front tire of the tractor sitting there on the ground. I looked down at the wheel and there was no tire. That’s why I sank and got stuck! This is when I threw in the towel and realized I had been beaten!
I tried walking over to a few neighbors houses to ask for help but they were not home. I called another one that I’ve become good friends with and he came over to help. He pulled our truck out but they had to run to go make a delivery for their business. They called another neighbor to come help me get the trailer out. That worked out smoothly and I’m super grateful for a very supportive and kind community of neighbors that are willing and able to help. I hope that I’ll be able to return the favors and the kindness!
Finally we were on the road! I stopped at a bank once we got to town and got some more cash from the ATM. I’ve opened a bank account here but have been waiting and waiting to connect them so that I can transfer money to this bank from my old one in Utah. That’s when I realized that in my hurry, I had left the rest of the money back in our camp trailer! Oh how painful that was! I was so frustrated with myself and had so much stress already. We did the only thing we could. We drove back, but didn’t try to drive up the driveway. I parked on the road and sprinted up the hill. The road to our property is over 1,000 feet, up a steep hill, then another 1,000 to get to the trailer. I am a little out of shape so that was a hard sprint for me! Luckily, being in lower elevation than I’m used to made it a bit less intense. I sprinted back and finally we were off. By that point, my son was already getting tired of sitting in the truck before we really even got on the way. We drove two hours to get the skid steer. Of course it takes time to load up and secure a piece of equipment and then we drove slowly back so we got back late. Another neighbor let us park at his place just off the road so we parked there instead of getting stuck in the middle of the night. My boy had fallen asleep in the truck so I had to wake him up and hike nearly a mile back to our trailer through the woods in the dark! He was a trooper though! He took it all with a great attitude!
The next day I got the skid steer unloaded and drove it down the road and toward our crazy driveway. I made sure to buckle up before going up the hill as I it’s somewhat steep and I have very little experience in that machine. It turns out that my adventures were not over, and there were some important lessons to be learned still. One of those was that the low speed on that machine is not low gear. It’s just low throttle, so I “shifted down” like you would on a tractor to go up the steepest part of the hill. I got most of the way up but I could tell that the machine was struggling. It surprised me because it should have more power than that. Then, it started to stall. That was terrifying because I knew that once that happened, the steering would be gone and I’d start going backwards. It has a parking brake, but it doesn’t really work well (that’s going to have to change). The motor cut out and it started to roll backwards! I hit the brake but it only slowed me down a little. I had zero control and just had to pray! I rolled backwards and luckily stayed straight most of the way but it started to turn towards the bottom. Instead of turning toward the slope, it turned to the side that drops off. It flew off the road and I thought for sure it would tip backward! Somehow, it jumped off the road, and landed quite softly in a small patch of sandy gravel right next to the other culvert we installed. Praise God! I jumped out and was happier than Katy Perry to stand on solid ground!
We had to dig with shovels for a minute to get out but it was pretty easy. Then I played with the controls until I realized what my mistake was. Also, my 6 year old son had the idea to drive up the steep part backwards. Then if it started to stall, I could go forward and prevent the stalling from happening and at least keep the steering enabled. Genius! In the end it went up just fine, but I was impressed with his problem solving skills. We talked about something we learned about in homeschooling called RESPA. Relax, Evaluate, Plan, Act. It’s an action plan for when things don’t go as you expect. It’s something both of us struggle with. Especially the “relax” part and it really is an important step! So many of this trip’s failures were because of my impatience. I need to relax, then move on to the problem solving part.
My son asked me what we were going to name the skid steer. I hadn’t thought of naming it. I'm kind of hyper practical sometimes and don’t care about that stuff. He suggested, tractonator, or skidsterious… I think that’s hilarous! I vote skidsterious.
In the end, we got the skid steer on the property. We got a few things done, and then we got word that there was a severe storm warning so we decided to clean up and head back to the house. At this point, I’m going to be making trips to the property frequently and our official move is coming up soon. This will be a good opportunity for me to pause before acting and relax when something doesn’t go as planned… because in homesteading, things rarely go as planned!
