1693TA
Senior Member
Several months ago I delivered a new New Holland tractor to a couple of guys to help maintain their recreational property. I spent a great deal of time teaching them the controls, what to watch out for, what to optimize for, etc. Really appreciative for the time taken. They are both engineers at Caterpillar in E. Peoria, and Mossville. We exchanged ideas, hobbies, families, etc. The one gent knew my wife quite well as she was the main accountant for the truck engine group when ACERT was first coming into play. First cabbed tractor they'd ever had and when mowing, the suction line for the air conditioner come apart at a crimp fitting, so I hauled it back in for warranty repair. At the front of their property and bordering a state highway was an old dilapidated house with a bunch of junk all around. Upon returning their tractor with new hoses and recharged A/C system, I noticed a new 84" rotary cutter setting outside their building. I showed them how to connect it to the tractor 3 point, level and center the mower, engage the pto, and match cutting speed/rpm to the job at hand. Again, real attentive and nice guys appreciative of the direct instruction.
Now to the core of the story:
That dilapidated house out front was to be burned as a training exercise for the volunteer fire departments of the area. It was a rental property for several years but had really been let go. When it became available the tractor gents made purchase ending their easement to ingress their property. The junk in the yard was the initial start of the property cleanup.
I delivered them a new grapple bucket this afternoon and the house is burned down. There is an excavator there pulling out the foundation block that was the basement walls and they are going to backfill the hole with dirt from further back on the property. Since they knew I had the dozer from prior conversation, I'm told when I'm ready, "to come clean the property up" removing about 35 trees and unkept undergrowth in the process. Don't want a price, just want it done. I explained I'm an apprentice at best to which the reply was "We all got to start somewhere", (my kind of guys) so looks like I need to get off the cheeks and make the machine start earning it's keep.
Now to the core of the story:
That dilapidated house out front was to be burned as a training exercise for the volunteer fire departments of the area. It was a rental property for several years but had really been let go. When it became available the tractor gents made purchase ending their easement to ingress their property. The junk in the yard was the initial start of the property cleanup.
I delivered them a new grapple bucket this afternoon and the house is burned down. There is an excavator there pulling out the foundation block that was the basement walls and they are going to backfill the hole with dirt from further back on the property. Since they knew I had the dozer from prior conversation, I'm told when I'm ready, "to come clean the property up" removing about 35 trees and unkept undergrowth in the process. Don't want a price, just want it done. I explained I'm an apprentice at best to which the reply was "We all got to start somewhere", (my kind of guys) so looks like I need to get off the cheeks and make the machine start earning it's keep.
