Gravity takes hold

Last week Neighbor Keith brought home an excavator from work, a Cat 315. What a big toy! He used it to move the concrete from the old barn site. The same site that we moved the barn roof from . He lined up a end dump truck and got permission to move the busted up concrete to the pit at Tri-City. They will use the concrete in the crushing program recycling it for use on roads, asphalt and driveways. In the process of moving the concrete there ended up being a lot of extra gravel fill, likely 300+ yards. We need more fill in front of our shop so it was agreed that we would take the fill and use it over here. Time to start up the old Ford F-600. Not the most enviromentally friendly vehicle at 6 miles per gallon, but effective at moving lots of material. The box holds about 16 yards. Hunter and I (my son) started hauling the morning. When it was time for me to go to the office and he to school, we suspended for the afternoon. Two loads hauled and a good start to the project. The truck is desinged to haul grain so you cannot fill it to the top. Being careful we had no problems dumping the load. That afternoon we restarted hauling. First load over Neighbor Keith was kind enough to fill us up and fill us up he did. The truck creaked and ached on the drive over. I was glad it was only a 1 mile trip. Well, time to dump it, but it would not dump. TOO MUCH WEIGHT! Time to get Chris (my wife) and take plan "B". Two shovels and a little work and we had the load a little smaller. Time to try lifting it again. I had her run the hydraulics while I used a plank to give it a little lift. Slowly up it went, slowly... finally it was half way up and just getting ready to dump when BAM! Down it came, breaking my tamrack plank and making one hell of a noise. The ram or someting associated with it had broken. Now what? Time to get the shovels and begin unloading by hand. It was about this time that Neighbor Keith called to see where I was. I explained the situation to him and being the good neigbor he is he came over and helped us begin unloading by hand. Mind you, I don't mind running a "number 2" digger but it gets real frustrating when you are hitting rocks with each scoop full. So, the unloading process began, about 15 minutes into it Neighbor Keith decided it was time to call for his backup, Wife Mary. It was a good thing too for the crew of Chris, I and Neighbor Keith was starting to run out of steam. With Mary's help we got it unloaded. While unloading my son Hunter found a unique rock in the load. The inside of the rock was hollowed out like it was some ancient crushing/mixing bowl. A fun find in a load of overly heavy sand. With free excerise by all and a another project to fix we won't fill it so full next time.