So I got my new BX 1880 about two weeks ago (but I traveled for my daughter’s wedding for one of those weeks). I enjoyed putting about 5 hours on it so far. I moved an awful lot of heavy stuff that has been piling up around here. Got an amazing amount of work done in those 5 hours. I‘ve had, still have, a fair amount of logs and stumps on the ground, combination of a back injury in recent years and taking down some junk wood. In Vermont it’s hard to get motivated to wheelbarrow big poplar or basswood rounds to split and stack when I can buy hardwood cut, split and delivered next to the woodshed for under $300/cord. So those big junk wood logs have been rotting in place, some in the way, all ugly.
I wasn’t expecting the new tractor to come in until Jan 1 ‘21 or so, but it came in early October. It took them a couple of weeks to get around to putting it together. I wasn’t going to bug them about it, but when I finally called after they had it in a crate for 3 weeks, they put it right together. They did not install the block heater they had promised, haven’t gotten around to asking about that. The mower deck hasn’t come in yet, but I asked if they wouldn’t mid delivering the tractor without it. Done mowing, and I would have taken it off for this period anyway. Lucky I didn’t have it one now, maybe.
So yesterday late afternoon I moved some slabs of stone that had been cluttering the front of the driveway, and then some logs, and I did a sweep to pick up some poplar logs that were rotting in the ferns by my little pond. Oops. It turns out the ground is soft even a couple of feet away from the water. One front wheel is mired about as deep as the depth of the wheel in the mud. It was getting dark, and then it got dark as I tried to winch it forward with the hook they welded onto the front bucket. That didn’t work, and there she still sits, as it seemed better to wait tit light and a cool head. Did not have a cool head all night, thinking about it.
I’ve had a Kubota 2WD for about 20 years, but I’m new at 4WD and a bucket. The weight of the bucket was a factor, of course, and I think using 4WD was a mistake there by the pond, as the front wheel was the one digging itself in. Differential lock didn’t help either. I think my next step is to unhook the winch from the front bucket, float the bucket, 2WD, and back up with the rear wheels still on pretty solid ground. Also maybe see if I can unweight the front wheels pushing down on the bucket and stick something under the bogged wheel. We’ll see. Otherwise I’ll try winching from the rear, trickier, as the closest tree is farther, my winch isn’t very long, and I don’t have any attachment points I can see in the rear — 3 point hitch is bare.
