VERY.... VERY expensive!
I have a very similar water feature on one side of my property…what you did / doing looks good…sure looks like could still be greasy. It’s usually too wet for me to do anything about it…I hoping for a drought, we’ll not really but if it ever gets dry enough, I’d like to enlist the BH and dig it down and then bring some stone in and make a drive that I could pass over even if a little water flowing is my thought. I’ve had to claw my way out with the B a time or two…once those tires are loaded it’s done in grease…but so far the MX seems to do a little betterWe have two permanent creeks on the property. One vehicle crossing on the small one; two on the bigger one (which is still small).
The crossing on the small one used to be problematic because it was primarily wet silt. Solved that a couple years ago by dumping rip rap size rocks and scrap concrete in it until it quit sinking. Rarely enough water in the small one to make short term changes in channel and banks.
The larger one is small but big enough for storms to put enough water in it to mess up the crossings to the point of needing some grooming. They need to be good enough to cross with a 2 door Mule, so the bar for maintenance is pretty low.
One was rough, but OK. That one is sand on both sides so pretty stable and easily worked. The other is sand on one side () and black, silty dirt on the other side (
). The dirt side had silted in to the point the bank was higher than part of the ramp, creating a sloppy mud hole that never fully dries. The bank was about 30” straight up which was enough to high center the Mule so it was time to fix it despite the sloppy mud hole.
Sort of got to try the Piranha for the first time but “cutting” sand and mud similar in consistency to half melted ice cream wasn’t exactly a challenge before.
Touched up the sand banks on both crossings while there. Kind of hoping now that the dirt bank can drain it will dry enough to smooth it a bit more and cut a ditch down one side of it in the next couple of weeks. Walking through it I was sinking about 4” and sliding around a good bit so what I could do with the loader and box blade had some limits.
First pic is right after the first loader pass took a swipe at the top of the silted in bank. View attachment 102474
Not perfect by any means. May do a bit more if/when it dries a bit. The creek will take care of clearing the little bit of mud dumped in its channel. It works slowly but it never stops. Should be back to normal after tonight’s rain.
View attachment 102475
Looking back from the other side when done. Couldn’t have made it that far without at least some work on the mud ramp. BTW, I love front wheel assist tractors with diff locks and loaders that can push them out backward.
While I had the tractor in the general vicinity, ran through the other crossing and smoothed it up a little, too. That one was jus box blade on the way in and again on the way out. At least filled in the wheel ruts.
View attachment 102476
….but it has a bit more clearance and no belly mower like the B. 
Yeah, the dirt/mud is some sort of silt that you so much as spit on it, it gets so slick you need a rope to help you walk up the ramp. The Mule does OK with it. The L will cross it but unless it’s bone dry it ruts it up bad coming up the dirt side so I use the sand/sand crossing with the L whenever practical. Only way I know to really improve it would be to dump a fair amount of rock in it, probably 4”, which would be nice.I have a very similar water feature on one side of my property…what you did / doing looks good…sure looks like could still be greasy. It’s usually too wet for me to do anything about it…I hoping for a drought, we’ll not really but if it ever gets dry enough, I’d like to enlist the BH and dig it down and then bring some stone in and make a drive that I could pass over even if a little water flowing is my thought. I’ve had to claw my way out with the B a time or two…once those tires are loaded it’s done in grease…but so far the MX seems to do a little better
Thank You!!
Use the chips for mulch in your flower beds, just not close to the house. They're pretty good for filling up stump holes too, if you keep doing it. I run the output of my WC68 through a little Murray 3" chipper/shredder (which was my first chipper) to chop them up fine. The last 6-8 inches of anything I put in the WC68 usually comes out in big slabs, IF it doesn't plug up the chute. Probably a good indicator that it's time to rotate the knives.
That’s ingenuity at its best.
If you have one male and one female connector on your implements, connect the two together when you park them and they won't lock up.
Good point!If you have one male and one female connector on your implements, connect the two together when you park them and they won't lock up.
PRECISELY why I plumbed mine that way. The FIRST time I had to break the line and it decided to squirt me with hydraulic oil, I fixed that problem. I take the grapple off, and connect the two lines on the grapple. It'll still hold position because the rod end can't hold as much oil as the head end, but the pressure is pretty negligible. Keeps dirt outta the female coupler as well, better than the cheezy little rubber plugs. Not only that, ain't no way to hook it up backward.If you have one male and one female connector on your implements, connect the two together when you park them and they won't lock up.
