My daughter loves the tractors and every chance she gets when they are not running she climbs up on them and pretends she is driving. We will make a gold miner out of her yet. I must confess I too love the tractors and climb up on them whenever I get a chance, of course if she see's me getting on the tractor she will want to go for a tractor ride too. Big repairs had to be made on this tractor this winter, so I will be getting a logbook for the tractors to track maintenance schedules, man there is a lot more to gold mining than just mining for gold. I love it ALL!
Aawwww,lyra is so cute. When we go to alaska, I bet you kysen will LOVE to sit in the tractor too.
ReplyDeleteAny time you guys come up we would love to take you out to the mine.
ReplyDeleteI also have a Case 480D backhoe (currently down for engine overhaul). I have found that a backhoe is an instant "kid magnet" and since I have six grand kids many nieces and nephews I would like to pass along this experience. I was in the process of moving a large shed that required pipe rollers and several straps and chains, the rollers and chains had to be "reset" on occasion requiring a lot of up and down off the machine and back gyrations. Since my 5 year old nephew was "helping" me I would first shut the backhoe down, put the nephew in the cab and proceed to do my resetting thinking this would be the best way to keep track of him. This worked just fine until after a reset I climbed back in the cab, put the nephew behind the seat, told him to hang on and then hit the key to restart. What followed was out a Stephen King novel, during my labors on the ground the nephew had been playing in the cab (as all kids love to do), he, without knowing had advanced the hand throttle to maximum "pedal to the metal", the backhoe was chained to the shed and we were about eight feet from our little log cabin. I also did not realize the nephew had moved around a little bit and had found a convenient place to stand, that being directly on the right swing floor pedal. If you can picture the chaos that occurred at the instant the backhoe started at full throttle and full right swing command via the foot swing pedal. The boom swung around and smashed into the end of the chain, ripping most of the floor joists inside the shed, the boom swing was halted by the impact to the side of the backhoe cab, stopping just inches from the wall of the cabin (built, by the way in the early 50's and my wife sitting on the other side of the wall). I didn't know I could move as fast as I did, but of course the damage and just about everything else was all over except for my screeching and clawing, twisting and turning and scaring the living daylights out of blameless nephew. This, my friends, is the stuff of nightmares and sincerely hope that this story will help others in preventing anything like this from occurring to them and their loved ones. Feel free to pass along, especially to others that may own the older "foot pedal" swing controls...
ReplyDeleteTake care, Phil Doherty
November 19, 2012 10:22 PM
Thank you for you story, operating equipment can be very dangerous and things can happen very fast, equipment owners should ensure they have a start up routine they follow especially if there may be little hands pretending to operate. I am glad no one got hurt, and again very thankful that you shared this story with everyone. It is a great way to raise awareness about hazards related to equipment.
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