Days 17 – 18: Workforce multiplier

So for the last 10 days or so, I’ve been renting a Kubota L47, which is what they call a “tractor loader backhoe”, and let me tell ya, I’ve gotten a LOT of work done with it. And I’ve done so much digging with it that if I would’ve done it by hand, it probably would’ve taken months to do – if my body would’ve even tolerated it at all.

I mean, can you imagine digging a pit that’s roughly 8 feet deep, 8 feet wide, and 17 feet long by hand?! And that’s just for the 1500 gallon septic tank!

I don’t have the final bill for it yet, but I’m estimating that it’ll cost about $2,700 when all is said and done. And even being the cheap-ass that I am, I think it was actually worth it.

To start out, I had it delivered because the delivery cost was about $400 whereas if I had rented their trailer for a week and towed it myself, then the trailer would’ve cost $400. Plus it’d take a total of 4 hours to go get it, come back, work, go drop it off, and then come back again. Plus gas, mileage, etc. So having it delivered seemed like the best deal.

Having never used one of these things before – but still having watched a couple training videos on YouTube – I decided to start work at the base of the hill since I still needed to install a couple pieces of culvert on each end of my driveway to finish it out.

That is, on the downhill side of the drive, I needed another 10ft of culvert so that I could have a better approach when coming from downhill – which is where I’ll mostly be coming from.

And on the uphill side of the drive, I wanted to add another 6ft of culvert so that I could get more dirt on top of it without messing up the angle or covering the end of the culvert.

(I might’ve mentioned this before, but it’s recommended to have at least a foot of material on top of the culverts in order for them to be fully supported for large loads driving on top.)

So rather than drive all 4.5 hours each way to the nearest Menards in Kansas – which as you might recall is where I can more than 50% off local pricing on culverts – I found a contractor in Colorado City (~3 hours north of here) that was selling 18″ poly culverts for something like $400 as opposed to the $311 that I’d pay at Menards.

So I rented another Uhaul trailer, and spent a day going to pick it up, cut it in half so that it’d fit in the trailer, coming back, and then actually driving it up the hill – a veritable luxury now that I have a drive to go up.

But of course as things go, it seems like nothing is ever easy, and I got stuck trying to turn the Tahoe around.

It had something to do with the fact that the Tahoe’s transmission has less power in reverse, so even though I technically had the room to turn around, it was having to push the trailer backwards, slightly uphill, at an angle, on uneven ground.

But after much finagling, I was finally able to get out, and after that it was clear to me that I had more clearing to do.

It’s just another example of a seemingly endless stream of challenges along the way.

Anyway, after all that I was happy to be behind the wheel of the L47 and ready to get to work.

I mean, can’t you just feel the joy I was exuding?

Ok well in fairness, I needed to be up at about 8am that morning, and after only something like 6 or 7 hours of sleep, I wasn’t feeling particularly perky, but ready to get to work nonetheless.

So I started to get my sea legs on the machine, and then about half a day later, got a little too close to the edge of the embankment, and got it stuck too!

So I called the guy who had dropped it off, and he recommended using the backhoe arm to push myself out. I was very apprehensive about it, but I figured that worst case scenario was that it’d tip over. And these things come with roll-over protections systems (ROPS), so even though it wouldn’t be a pleasant ride, as long as I was buckled in, I’d stay protect. So I soldiered on.

It’s unfortunate that I didn’t have a good place to put the camera on the other side of the L47 so that you could get a better vantage point, but here’s what happened next:

Needless to say, I was pretty excited and feeling accomplished for getting myself out of that pinch.

So when it was eventually time to take the work up the hill, I painstakingly decided whether to take out some more trees.

Here’s a video I had taken just a couple days earlier mulling over the best way to clear an area big enough to navigate a 17ft vehicle pulling a 23ft camper around the corner – at the top of the hill where the driveway T’s:

And here’s me using the L47 to take out one of the other trees nearby :

When you see later videos, you might be able to tell that I was still getting my sea legs in that video, and it was surprising how after just 10 days with the machine, I felt like an old pro.

Weirder yet was driving my Tahoe after about 55 hours of operating the L47. For one thing, I had gotten used to just pressing backward on the gas pedal to go in reverse, which was very weird to re-adjust to not having any more.

Anyway, that’s all for now, but I’m already uploading a detailed video of the build site after using the L47 to do TONS of clearing. So I’ll just schedule that one to come out tomorrow so that it’s not too much information for one day.

So I’ll just leave you with this sunset: