The 'Buried My Equipment' Thread

[barbender]

I wasn't on your site Gary, but on my jobsites I'm very leery of any patch of "ground" that is completely free of vegetation. I had a landowner pestering me to drive out on an area to freeze it down for access. This guy was the worst landowner I've ever worked for, he only wanted us to cross this area so we wouldn't need to cut an access strip. Well, it was a low spot with no vegetation, which means pure water. I tried to keep ignoring him, but I finally got sick of listening to him. I just eased my bunk end out on the ice, the tracks fell through. I called the harvester operator, he came over and I connected the chain I'd brought with and he popped me out. Well then I look up, and on top of the hill is my boss. I see him about once every 2-3 months but he had to show up for that. He says, "what in the world are you doing? You should know better than to go out there!" Which he was right, but he wasn't the one out there listening to this fool landowner every day either. Anyways, cattails are always bad, no vegetation is always worse😬

[Walnut Beast]

These are old pictures. I won a seven year legal battle over this and got $114K and then had it all taken away by an insurance company and a dysfunctional appeals court system that ruled that since there were no damages at the time the landowner breached his duty to inform me I should not have been able to sue him.

Would you drive across here when the temperatures had been down to 20 below zero?



 

Too bad if you said yes. It was nothing but a hole in the ground blasted with diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate some 20 years prior and called a "duck pond." It was barely wide enough for the harvester to fit in the width and it smelled like a sewer when I broke thru. A truly bad day and I dumped an additional $40K into legal fees plus stiffed a lawyer for another $35K.




 

You would be hard pressed to stiff a lawyer nowadays as they want big money down before you go to court and most are setup where you pay 💰 every month and if you don't they won't proceed 

[Wudman]

This one had been posted a few times before here..........Compliments of one of those hurricanes....They were trying to get to the buncher.



 

[Firewoodjoe]

This one had been posted a few times before here..........Compliments of one of those hurricanes....They were trying to get to the buncher.

I get nervous when tracked equipment is stuck. That can get bad quick. 

[Tacotodd]

@Firewoodjoe it can and usually is.

[Wudman]

get nervous when tracked equipment is stuck. That can get bad quick

And that little boy is on 30" pads.

Wud

[DDW_OR]

no photo = no evidence

[DDW_OR]

no photo = no evidence

that being said
F250, 2wd, stuck in the Arizona mud just north of Phoenix.
2 mile walk, 10 foot tow = $200
Bobcat 331 excavator, got its self out 2 of 3 times.
third needed the Mahindra 5520 4x4 with Farmi 11,000 pound pull winch.
i think i had to use a snatch block.
Mahindra 5520, had to roll the bucket to get it out twice

[florida]

I had an old Jeep CJ that had been converted into a swamp buggy. I put some worn-out 44's on it which made it look cool but it was jacked up so high the steering was really wonky from those 44s jerking the front end around. My buddy and I went down to the woods one day and got the buggy from where I kept it hidden in a big patch of palmettos. We crossed over the property line to run south on the fine new marl grade the county had put in to service a 3-mile line of water wells they were putting in. Each pad had 2 - 24" wells on it, a shallow well, about 500' deep, and a deep well about 1200-1500' deep.  We drove down about a mile south where we could cross back over to our side through a big swale. When we got there was a new pad with 2 wells and the swale was full of bright white sand. I headed across the "sand" and got about halfway before we sank like a boat anchor. It turned out the "sand" was drilling mud and was deep enough that those 44's were completely under except the top 3 or 4 inches of my left front tire. Those old slick 44's spun like a rat in a wheel and we didn't move any direction except down. The Jeep jack was pointless and the winch was as old and worn out as everything else on that buggy.

We hiked back to the truck covered with nasty drilling mud and went home. The next day we went back with sheets of plywood, hand-cranked winches, electric winches, chains, shovels, and anything else we thought might help. We cut down some dead pines and threw logs in front of the front tires and then put plywood on top. We got the Jeep jack on the plywood and by good luck didn't kill ourselves getting that left front tire up enough to slide some plywood under the front of it. We winched and jacked and dug until by evening we had it up on dry ground again. A couple of weeks later I loaded it up and took it home as it was so covered with drilling mud nobody would ride in it. It took me days to get most of the mud off and in the meantime, I had spent $100 cash for a set of 4 old military jeep tires with great tread but cracks in the sidewalls big enough to stick a nickel in!  The buggy looked stupid jacked way up with those poker chip tires but I never got stuck again.

Years later when I sold it the buyer crawled under it and asked me what all that stuff in the frame was.

[johndozer]

Fellow sank a Hitachi 200 hoe to within 2 feet of top of cab across the road from some property I own. Ground didn't look that bad then a section of it just liquified under him. Machine went down so fast he barely got out. Another fellow drowned a D8 walking into a remote mining site about 40 miles off the road. Tried to cross a river at night on an established ford got disoriented in the dark and drove off the ford. Machine was in the river for over a month before the owner could get 2 winch machines in to recover it.

[Satamax]

Nothing up to your level guys.

But i was really stuck in a mud bog. And we nicked a friend's snowcat to get me out. That's from 2005.

https://youtu.be/rtsKXwIYwBk

[Jeff]

From 20 years ago

I posted this well over a year ago, But I happened to think about it today, because its about the right time of year. So fer ya'// that aint seen it, here ya go and yer welcome to top it if you can.

I just want to say right off the bat, I WAS NOT DRIVING AND TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY! With that said, these pics are actually WORSE then they appear, the skidder operator (refered to here after as the late captain nemo) did not tell anyone he was "stuck" until late that night. This is the next day, night time temp? 20 below zero daytime temp? 10 One Big solid block of Timberjack and Beaver droppings.

[Walnut Beast]

WOW!!

[Nebraska]

Agree  ....Wow! I can see the getting stuck deal it happens.... The leaving it to freeze in ......Here's your sign......

[donbj]

Does this count? Mowing with a 10' rotary mower til I found this spot


  

[mike_belben]

seed heads over the cab, yup.  it counts, youre in.   8)

[Nebraska]

Got this from a friend this evening. New guy in the excavator had a rough morning.

 

No damage, buddy had him back up and going in a few minutes. 

[Southside]

Easier to plumb the machine for a wrist than to try and dig on that angle....

[mike_belben]

 :D

[Kim_Ked]

Got this from a friend this evening. New guy in the excavator had a rough morning.

 

No damage, buddy had him back up and going in a few minutes.

This one makes me think....
I'm currently putting a road across one of my fields. There is no bottom either. Just as far down as I can dig in clay and soil, no rock of any kind.  I'm ditching as I go and piling the the ditching material on the road in front. Pack down, advance a few feet and repeat.  It was a bit jelly like at the bottom of the field but firming up as I go. Iv done this once already on another field and after the road dried out hardened, it was good year round.

[mike_belben]

making mushy clay hard is a very slow case of drying it out and keeping it dry.  dig it up, pile and windrow in sun and wind, roll it around, get it to dry out more.  replace it in lifts with runoff pitch and then compact it with the tracks then let it get rained on and dried out before adding the next lift.  

truly dry clay is about as hard as the orange square flue pipe inside a chimney.  if you can keep the water rapidly shedding, its as close to a conrete road as any dirt will get.  with hydration its like butter.  removing hydration of something that gets rained on and doesnt really ever dry beyond about 6" of crust, is the challenge.  

mechanically compacting it takes a sheeps foot or some sort of small point rammer.  a flat plate just wont work, itll make a thin skin over uncompacted dirt.  but rain will remove the voids on your lift.  its just a slow slow case of waiting on weather.  gosh i think im almost 3 years into it for making an acre of fill buildable. 

[Kim_Ked]

making mushy clay hard is a very slow case of drying it out and keeping it dry.  dig it up, pile and windrow in sun and wind, roll it around, get it to dry out more.  replace it in lifts with runoff pitch and then compact it with the tracks then let it get rained on and dried out before adding the next lift.  

truly dry clay is about as hard as the orange square flue pipe inside a chimney.  if you can keep the water rapidly shedding, its as close to a conrete road as any dirt will get.  with hydration its like butter.  removing hydration of something that gets rained on and doesnt really ever dry beyond about 6" of crust, is the challenge.  

mechanically compacting it takes a sheeps foot or some sort of small point rammer.  a flat plate just wont work, itll make a thin skin over uncompacted dirt.  but rain will remove the voids on your lift.  its just a slow slow case of waiting on weather.  gosh i think im almost 3 years into it for making an acre of fill buildable.

I guess its not completely clay. Basically I scrape off the sod, pile it back behind my ditch. Then I dig up the ditch, place it in front of me and advance a few feet. I can drive on it immediately after making a few passes with the excavator. Last years road was hauling on the day I built it and continued thought the entire season in all messes of weather. Its kind of baffling actually. I live on the South Mountain of Nova Scotia. Its known to be particularly rocky and impossible to deal with. My property happens to be over a drumlin which sticks up about 30 meters higher above sea level than the surrounding land scape.  Anywhere on my land, I can dig a hole as deep as I like and never hit solid bedrock. Now I've only dug down about 25 - 30' anywhere, but in those test holes, I saw exactly the same thing I am seeing when putting my roads through. Its a fine red soil. Very little rock, you would swear its all been screened, with really no solid bottom. This continues well past the fields and through the forest. I can scrape off the surface rocks and stumps, then dig in to a material that packs very well with minimal amount of rock through it.  I'm just amazed at the geology. I can dig like this at my place, but at my fathers, literally a stones throw away, I cant get the bucket in the ground, its all solid rock and anybody wishing to build a foundation usually ends up building an entire yard up to cover up the basement walls. 

[mike_belben]

From what little i have gathered about dirt... since clays, silts and sands will all slake and more or less liquify in the absence of binders like quartz and silica, they will flow with heavy runoff then settle out in any pool or eddy where the water velocity is too slow to keep them in suspension.  Rains wash them out of any disturbed dirt leaving behind rocky soils for ray to pave bogs.  

This mud flow is how tennessee has such even slabs of sandstone for example.. They were stages of liquid mud deposits rolling downhill with the rain and settling in pockets.  If the drying action was calm they can be slab smooth.  If it was windy theyll have ripple.  Different compositions make different colors.  But binder was present to make them into rock.  Im working on a garden accent wall right now and some of my pinker slabs can turn totally back into sand in your fingers for lack of binder. Some are quite hard.

A lot of times you see a smooth flat slab at a steep slope.   That was once horizontal like a big stone hockey rink, before it got pushed up.  Pretty amazing.



I had to look up drumlin.  It is possible that whenever the ice was retreating that something caused a pocket which collected the flowing clay and silt mud deposit that eventually left you with a sweet fill hill.  Maybe a pocket in the melting ice itself.  In time the dirt edges will round over like pits and hummocks in the woods.


I can hardly set a fence post or bury a dog without bedrock.  My burial plot is gonna need fill.  im thinking maybe just save the trouble and rototill my ashes into the garden.  

[Kim_Ked]

From what little i have gathered about dirt... since clays, silts and sands will all slake and more or less liquify in the absence of binders like quartz and silica, they will flow with heavy runoff then settle out in any pool or eddy where the water velocity is too slow to keep them in suspension.  Rains wash them out of any disturbed dirt leaving behind rocky soils for ray to pave bogs.  

This mud flow is how tennessee has such even slabs of sandstone for example.. They were stages of liquid mud deposits rolling downhill with the rain and settling in pockets.  If the drying action was calm they can be slab smooth.  If it was windy theyll have ripple.  Different compositions make different colors.  But binder was present to make them into rock.  Im working on a garden accent wall right now and some of my pinker slabs can turn totally back into sand in your fingers for lack of binder. Some are quite hard.

A lot of times you see a smooth flat slab at a steep slope.   That was once horizontal like a big stone hockey rink, before it got pushed up.  Pretty amazing.



I had to look up drumlin.  It is possible that whenever the ice was retreating that something caused a pocket which collected the flowing clay and silt mud deposit that eventually left you with a sweet fill hill.  Maybe a pocket in the melting ice itself.  In time the dirt edges will round over like pits and hummocks in the woods.


I can hardly set a fence post or bury a dog without bedrock.  My burial plot is gonna need fill.  im thinking maybe just save the trouble and rototill my ashes into the garden.  

Come to think of it. The only cemetery around is just off to the next property. Its old... Really old. I'm guessing they picked this spot as it was the only dirt they could get a good depth on with hand shovels back in the day. 
I made a bigger cut across the field than I originally planned on. My dad thinks I'm building a highway. With the wide road and the ditches it looks like a lot of loss of good clear acreage but, the fields don't make me 5 Cents and I needed a better access to the land behind it, as well, just accessing the fields was a challenge as there was only a goat path to it. The road certainly isn't as pretty as the nice carpet of field grass that was there yesterday. I keep thinking that if the old guys that cleared this field could reach out and smack me now they probably would. I'm told that for the last couple hundred years they worked at maintaining these fields and grew massive crops to help feed the community. We inherited it (the property) and fixed it up as the house was literally at life's end without some repair and upkeep. We have lots of fields like this one for any real purpose that may present itself, but esthetically, I'm thinking Ill need some trees along the new road to make it look a bit better. I'm placing the sod back on the road banks to help with washout, it helps look a bit more natural but it certainly makes me think twice about if I should have did it or not. Too late now though. Iv only a couple hundred feet left till I'm connected with last years road I built. 
Ill post some pics once its complete.

[mike_belben]

a good road is worth what it costs ya, and no one knows what they cost until they build a bad road before they redo it a few times.   Wider just means more room for ditching and accents/asthetics. 


Youll appreciate the width when youre sideloading something one day.