Hello everyone,
As I have said in a previous post, when I get involved in something, I'm all in. Well, something else I should tell you is that when I try to volunteer to do something, especially if I volunteer to use my equipment, I usually end up breaking something. So as you can figure out, I have a story to tell you.
I volunteered to go to Winterboro School on Saturday for a clean up day around the field to get ready for the football season. We had greed to be there between 6 and 6:30 am. Well I finally stopped hitting the alarm at 6:30 and got up. Amy told me that I did not sleep good all night and talked to myself trying to rationalize tuning the alarm off. I got up and headed up to the shed to get the tractor ready to go. The finishing mower was under it so I need to get it off so I could put the bush hog mower on. I should have known when to stop when I started having problems getting the mower off and it just would not cooperate. I got it off and got the bush hog on. Dad had walked out to see if I needed help. I should have asked for a prayer, but instead said I was OK. He helped me anyway with the bush hog. Then I turned the tractor around and put the box blade in the bucket of the front end loader to take in case we needed it. Dad even asked if it would ride like that and I said "no problem, it will ride fine. We put it on the trailer and I finished putting a few lawn tools in the truck to use and headed off. By now its 7:30 am and I am an hour late. Being late is a big stress point for me and I should have know it was going to keep going down hill from there. I turned out onto Main Street in Sycamore, when the box blade fell off the front end loader and hit my tail gate and bumper of the truck. I made it a few hundred yards to the church parking lot and wrestled it into the back of the truck. I don't know how I did it by myself, probably from the state of mind I was in and the adrenaline going hard. As you can see above in the picture, it messed my tailgate and bumper up pretty good. I got going again to the school. When I got out on the highway, I figured out fast that the tractor was not sitting on the trailer right and I could not pull it over 30 mph or it would sway badly. I just went slow instead of trying to stop and reposition. I was not in a good mood. I did make it to the school and got unloaded. Everything seemed to be going OK, except that a lot of people did not show. I used the loader to pick up some trash and a pile of debris into the dumpster. I then went to bush hog behind the bleachers like I had planned. I was making good progress and cleared several passes before the first problem started. The first was when I got up against the fence with the tractor and I think every pin or screw that stuck out on the side of the tractor got tangled into the fence. It took forever to get out of that mess. I then got tangled into a piece of guy wire or old power line wire that someone had cut loose and left in the brush. Again, it took me forever to get it out from under the bush hog. Again, I got going and made a small piece of progress before disaster struck. I was using the loader to push the brush down so I could bush hog over it. I got against a big piece of brush and was using the hydraulics to push it out when the line to the lift portion of the loader blew out, spraying me with hot hydraulic fluid. Of course this also meant I could not raise the loader any more. Well, I had to back out from in the woods all the way around the field and to the trailer due to the bucket would not let me go forward being down. I finally got to the trailer to realize now that I can't get on the trailer without going forward. I got the trailer at an angle and wedged the loader bucket up onto the trailer so it would slide on the trailer bottom. I thought, what else can happen now. Well then my chain saw would not start to cut the two dead trees that stand behind the field and look awful. I finally packed it in and came home.
I got my shower and told Amy about how it had all been so bad all morning. I had to be at the ambulance service by noon to relieve the coworker that held over for me to be able to go help at the school. I made it in at 12:15, so that was not to bad.
The good news is that for some reason my bad luck took a break and we did not run all day and I got some rest. The bad news is that when I awoke from my nap, I hurt all over from all the wrestling I had done with the equipment. Then we stared running calls. Nothing good for awhile, then at 2:30 this morning, we had to go out to one of the local taverns to check a person involved in a fight. He had gotten the crap beaten out of him. He was mostly calm thru us putting the collar on and onto the backboard. But once in the ambulance, I went to put an IV in him and he became a live one and wanted to fight again thinking that we were the ones from before. It was all my partner and I could do to not get hurt, till the police could get into the ambulance and get him wrestled down and handcuffed to the stretcher. He cussed us and was not a pleasant person till we got him sedated in the ED. This did not help my back at all. We had just gotten back to sleep from that when we were called to check another domestic fight victim. She was drunk and also uncooperative and that call was no more fun than the other. At least she was not violent, just aggravating.
I finely got off this morning and got home. It's been a pretty pleasant day. We did some family stuff and rested a little. But I wanted to do this post to tell you about how my day yesterday went from bad to worse and remind all you to look at the signs and if they are telling you to stop, STOP. Maybe it won't end up costing you like it always does me because I won't listen to the signs and keep going. After all, my volunteering is only going to cost me a tail gate for my truck, a hydraulic line and hydraulic fluid, along with the four hours of work I missed just to be there.
Good luck to all of you !
Jeff
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