59 degrees - 8:58 am - partially cloudy...
Yesterday was just another crazy day on the mountain.
Tony is still working on the ‘Laying Conduit’ project. Last week he was having equipment issues (see post: ‘Laying Conduit (or trying to)…’). Then last weekend it rained the whole time, turning all the dirt into mud so he was unable to work outside. This week has been gorgeous with warm sunny weather and has dried everything out. So Tuesday night after work, Tony planned to do some more dirt work. As we are continually finding out, plans like to go astray. The large excavator had dead batteries again. When he got into the smaller excavator to jump the larger excavator, a track fell off and ended all plans for Tuesday night.
Trying to take advantage of the warm weather, Tony took yesterday off from work to work on the equipment and get everything up and running. The morning went fine and he was able to get the track back onto the small excavator. Next he was going to get the large excavator going when our neighbors stopped in. They sold their D8 Bulldozer and a truck and trailer was already on its way to pick it up. All they had to do was get it to the end of the driveway, which is just over a mile.
While our neighbor Pam and I went off for our morning walk, Tony and Jack jumped into the large excavator to follow the bulldozer down the driveway. The excavator was there just in case something went wrong, which thankfully nothing did. Our neighbors were extremely relieved that the morning had gone so smoothly and now they just had to wait for the truck and trailer.
Now that the morning excitement was over, it was time for me to run down and pick up our daughter from school. On the way down the mountain I ran across the truck and trailer. Well of course, I just had to chuckle. The morning had gone so smoothly, of course there had to be a speed bump in there somewhere. And this was a pretty big speed bump!
The lowboy trailer had slid off the road while the driver was trying to go thru a very tight corner. After talking to the drive for a moment, back up the mountain I went (no cell service in that particular area) to tell the guys. Being a mom, I wasn’t very concerned about the truck and trailer; I was more worried about picking Caitlyn up from school. It seems that just about every week some vehicle or trailer or something is unable to make that corner, and they get pulled back out just fine, but I have never been late picking my kids up (which we ended up only being about 15 minutes late for).
After telling the guys what had happened, our neighbor drove down to check it out. Instead of the truck and trailer driving up to pick up the bulldozer, the bulldozer had to drive down, which was about 3.5 miles and took about 1 ½ hours, to pull the truck and trailer out. Total time from start to finish was just under four hours and boy was everyone one happy when that bulldozer was loaded onto that truck and trailer and it was driving away!
Just another crazy day on the mountain.
