I have the same reaction with poison ivy. I use a product called Zanfel. It's a little expensive, but worth it. It will take care of the rash and feels great as you apply it. I highly recommend it.
What did you do to or on your Kubota today?
- Thread starter gurn
- Start date
Back in the 70's, they were very popular in paper mills down here in the southeast because they can get in tight places and keep maintenance people mobile. Bicycles were completely banned because of the number of injuries, then the three wheelers. But these little guys were around right up to the 90's and a lot of them were converted to propane so they could be driven indoors. It was great for maintenance folks because one minute you're at the river intake pumps, next minute you're needed at the effluent ponds, and I've been in some mills where that distance might be nearly 10 miles. Not exactly a good motivator on a bicycle. Full size pickups have taken their place though, because as you say, emissions regulations. Imagine that, a tiny little go-kart with a bed on it polluting too much in a paper mill. There's your sign!
PHPaul
Well-known member
Equipment
B2650, Pronovost snow blower, Landpride rotary mower, Howard tiller, box blade
Mowed the fields for what is likely the last time (or at least next-to-last) for this year.
Today, the State is cleaning ditches and while they're working within a reasonable distance of my place, dumping the spoil on my patch. I'm sorting through it with my skeleton bucket (aka rock bucket) to get big rocks and sod/roots/brush out of it and then piling it up for future use. Most of it is pretty decent stuff, lot of sand but enough organic matter to make it useful.
Looks like 15-20 yards of pretty decent dirt once you screen out the sod, rocks and roots.
Today, the State is cleaning ditches and while they're working within a reasonable distance of my place, dumping the spoil on my patch. I'm sorting through it with my skeleton bucket (aka rock bucket) to get big rocks and sod/roots/brush out of it and then piling it up for future use. Most of it is pretty decent stuff, lot of sand but enough organic matter to make it useful.
Looks like 15-20 yards of pretty decent dirt once you screen out the sod, rocks and roots.
Last edited:
PHPaul
Well-known member
Equipment
B2650, Pronovost snow blower, Landpride rotary mower, Howard tiller, box blade
Kinda reminded me of the paddle treads on sand buggies, but I don’t think that tractor’s gonna be shootin’ any rooster tails with ‘em. I watched some off road stuff on Prime and they were running those on hopped up 4-wheeler rigs that probably were cranking out 500 HP or more.
Started modding a new (to me) 60” box blade for the El Cheapo QH. Got some cutting and welding to do. There’s a piece of angle between the upright section that should be used to beat hell out of the idiot that decided welding it in place was a good idea. That’s gonna be the toughest part of the mod. The lift pins are a little close but I have some Cat 1-Cat 3 adapters that are gonna do the trick. Or, I can put spacers under the original pins and weld them in place to make it 1-1/4 inches wider. I have a couple options for the width problem but I don’t think I’m going have much fun cutting the welds out of the top where the top hook connects. Tight quarters and the welder approached it like killing a housefly with a locomotive. Gonna try my patience, I’m sure. Then I get to replace the diagonal with some 1-1/2 inch angle.
I’m still wondering why a Cat 1 Quick hitch has Cat 3 lift hooks on it. This is a Harbor Freight knockoff of the Speeco. Every single thing I have looked at suggests it’s identical other than price. The HF HaulMaster was $100 when I bought mine
I’m still wondering why a Cat 1 Quick hitch has Cat 3 lift hooks on it. This is a Harbor Freight knockoff of the Speeco. Every single thing I have looked at suggests it’s identical other than price. The HF HaulMaster was $100 when I bought mine
Last edited:
I got to use the mulching head on my mini-ex yesterday. The hoses that came with it are 6' long and I had them bungied together and looped in a manner to try and keep them out of harms way. Try is the optimum word here. After 3 hours of work and constantly watching the hoses and being careful, I caught one of them under the mulcher and chewed it right apart. After getting the machine back to the barn and removing the hose, I measured and I am going to get 4' hoses made today at a local shop.
What a day yesterday. I got the new 4' hoses made on Thursday and installed them and routed them to keep out of harm's way. Along with other things going on, I didn't get back to the machine until yesterday. First thing I did was check the hydraulic fluid and found I lost more than I originally thought and used up what I had left and had to go out and buy more. I picked up a 5 gallon pail and was transferring it into the gallon jug for ease to fill the mini. Well.. I thought I had a good system going until I overfilled the gallon jug and made a good mess on the barn floor. No problem until I found my new bag of speedy dry in the corner had split and had made a mess there. Got that all picked up into buckets and ready to clean the barn floor.
Went out for my shake down cruise with the mulcher. Part way through I see a hydraulic leak at what appears to be the fittings connecting the hose to the mini. Tried tightening with the wrench I had with me, but no go. Walked back to the barn to get better wrenches. Got the fitting tightened and started up again. Low and behold, I must have loosened up another fitting when tightening the original one. Stopped the machine and tightened that one up. Ran for over an hour and all seemed well. Stopped at one point to un-jam the mulcher head ( stingy trees and shrubs can clog the unit) and looked things over. The fittings I worked on seemed good, but the other side looked like it might be leaking also. Couldn't find it so I finished up for the day.
Murphy was working overtime with me yesterday!
Today I'm going to mow the lawn and get other chores done and then take a good look at the mini for leaks, but first I have alot of residual fluid to clean off so I can really see what I got. I think I'll also do the service on the drives while I have it in the barn and get it ready for the next round.
All in all, I still really like having machines, I could spend my $$ on booze and women, but I'd rather go this way anytime.
Went out for my shake down cruise with the mulcher. Part way through I see a hydraulic leak at what appears to be the fittings connecting the hose to the mini. Tried tightening with the wrench I had with me, but no go. Walked back to the barn to get better wrenches. Got the fitting tightened and started up again. Low and behold, I must have loosened up another fitting when tightening the original one. Stopped the machine and tightened that one up. Ran for over an hour and all seemed well. Stopped at one point to un-jam the mulcher head ( stingy trees and shrubs can clog the unit) and looked things over. The fittings I worked on seemed good, but the other side looked like it might be leaking also. Couldn't find it so I finished up for the day.
Murphy was working overtime with me yesterday!
Today I'm going to mow the lawn and get other chores done and then take a good look at the mini for leaks, but first I have alot of residual fluid to clean off so I can really see what I got. I think I'll also do the service on the drives while I have it in the barn and get it ready for the next round.
All in all, I still really like having machines, I could spend my $$ on booze and women, but I'd rather go this way anytime.
I used the L3901DT and BH-77 to level an area. When it got close to 100°, I let the tractor idle a little and put it in the lean-to. The only thing that made the temperature not so bad, was the humidity was around 35%. I will be glad when it cools off a little bit.
I feel for anyone that has to work out in this heat and it doesn't look like it is going to cool off anytime soon.
I feel for anyone that has to work out in this heat and it doesn't look like it is going to cool off anytime soon.
Used the L3902 on our sweet corn patch. Harrowed 2x to get some loose soil, broadcast seed with the RTV, harrowed 2x more to help cover some seed. Ground was harder on top than I had hoped but some moisture underneath. Chance of rain this week so hopefully I'll get a good stand.
I used the L3901DT, BH-77 and 3010 Mule to move the dirt that I dug up the other day.
I think I might have been filling the bed up a little too much
I think I might have been filling the bed up a little too much
Yesterday, I dug out the PHD from the barn and got it on the BX. Going to be building a deck for the in-laws.
Today, I rewired the cab heater correctly. When I installed the heater last winter, I hurried through the wiring to get it working.
Today, I rewired the cab heater correctly. When I installed the heater last winter, I hurried through the wiring to get it working.
I actually hauled brush to the burn pile. After the first load, I started seeing little drops on the hood and my first thought was I've sprung a leak on the grapple again. But no, it was actually rain drops after 30+ days. It was just a little area shower, but at least it was finally our turn.
Back up. Monday I was going to clean up behind my nephew, who had been using his CTL and cutter to clear along the road. The first load went fine, but apparently @Runs With Scissors was supervising me the day before when I swapped the forks for the grapple. When I grabbed the second load, it became obvious I hadn't latched things and the grapple came completely off. Fortunately, the only damage was a loosened fitting which required taking the grapple off at the shop to tighten. But, after one side came off again, apparently I didn't reinstall the grapple properly, I decided Monday was not meant for grappling.
Yesterday, I bought a #8 JIC 45° swivel at NAPA to improve the hose routing on the grapple. They saw me coming for $25, made in China so no premium brand either.
Back up. Monday I was going to clean up behind my nephew, who had been using his CTL and cutter to clear along the road. The first load went fine, but apparently @Runs With Scissors was supervising me the day before when I swapped the forks for the grapple. When I grabbed the second load, it became obvious I hadn't latched things and the grapple came completely off. Fortunately, the only damage was a loosened fitting which required taking the grapple off at the shop to tighten. But, after one side came off again, apparently I didn't reinstall the grapple properly, I decided Monday was not meant for grappling.
Yesterday, I bought a #8 JIC 45° swivel at NAPA to improve the hose routing on the grapple. They saw me coming for $25, made in China so no premium brand either.
NCL4701
Well-known member
Equipment
L4701, T2290, WC68, grapple, BB1572, Farmi W50R, Howes 500, 16kW IMD gen, WG24
We have three houses on our place at this point: my dad’s old house, brother’s old house, and the house my wife and I live in. At the end of the private road that connects them all to the public road, there’s a sort of traffic circle that has exits going to the pole barn, pond, walkout basement of dad’s old house, walkout basement of brother’s old house, and back out to the private road. It’s more like a semi-flattened oval than a true circle due to the topography including a 8’ elevation change on the south side of the circle.
The garages on the houses all have 7’ high doors so they’re only useful for stuff such as cars, lawnmowers, flatbed trailers, and other short stuff. The three basements and pole barn all have 9’ doors so they’re more suitable for bigger items such as the tractors, enclosed cargo trailer, etc. The tractors live in brother’s old house. The basement vehicle bay in my house is mostly open as it’s used for any mechanical work that requires a lot of tools as that’s where most of the tools are. The only big thing in the basement at dad’s old house was a 8’ enclosed trailer. The bay is 60’ deep so there was a good bit of room in front of it.
All that was working swell until I lost my mind one day about a week ago and bought a boat. Wife and I have talked about getting a boat off and on for probably 20 years. Closest we’d gotten was a canoe and a pair of kayaks. We enjoyed those very much for years, but wife really wanted something with a motor and that she could be really comfortable in. Last week while we were talking about it yet again, I said something to the effect that we ain’t getting any younger so if you ever want a boat, put on your shoes and meet me in the truck in 30 minutes. A few hours later we drive back home with a shiny new 19’, 200hp, Yamaha AR190 jet boat. The tower folds, so it fits through a 9’ door. I have an available bay at the basement of dad’s house so we should be all set with a place to store it in a pretty decent climate controlled building.
Putting it in the available bay is a little challenging, but not bad. Drive through the traffic circle past dad’s house, head toward the pond to get sort of straight, then back through the circle in sort of a serpentine path to get it through the door. Great.
Getting out can be done, but it isn’t ideal. To get out, it’s either pull down toward the pond and then back up through a series of curves up a moderately steep hill about 300’ to get to a place to turn around, or continue around the traffic circle to the exit for the main road. Obvious long term is the latter option.
Two issues with that. The turn around on that end of the flattened circle shape is tighter than I would like for a 4 door pickup pulling a 19’ boat on a 22’+ trailer. I’m missing large trees on the outside of the turn with the front of the truck by about 2” and the boat trailer has about 3” clearance from a Virginia pine on the inside of the circle. Except for that be pine, it’s good. That particular pine is dead so pretty obvious it had to go.
I’ve cut a lot of trees. This wasn’t a big tree. Probably around 80’ tall, but only around 16” at the base. I was not excited at all to cut this tree. Almost embarrassed to admit I didn’t notice it was dead until the bark started sloughing off the base about 6 months ago. By that time it was pretty rotten. Rotten enough it could have large limbs coming out of it while cutting, could break in half for no good reason while falling and top go who knows where, may be no way to leave “holding wood” for a hinge because it may not have enough integrity left to hold anything. It’s also leaning the wrong way so it has to be pulled.
Put the bush hog back in the shed and put on the winch. Set a choker about 12’ up on the trunk and hooked up the winch. I was thinking it’s so rotten, before cutting on it at all, it might be worth pulling on it some. At least maybe shake out anything that’s about to fall off anyway before I start cutting and stuff falls on me. I know it’s hard to see the winch line in pics, but it is there. The tree is the spindly pine with the arrow pointing at it.
Was pleasantly surprised the winch pulled the whole thing over. Came over about half way and hung in a big sweet gum. Kept pulling and it broke in half with the top leaning back into a nearby beech.
Reset the choker on the top section and pulled it out of the beech.
Swapped the winch for the chipper. Chipped all the <5” stuff.
Grappled the four sections of the trunk to the scrap log pile. The base was so rotten, I was able to rip the bottom section off the stump with the grapple. That left this mass of splinters.
Swapped the chipper for the stump grinder.
No more splintery stump.
All done. I don’t know how I got anything done with our old equipment. I suppose it was probably because we used to have more people.
The garages on the houses all have 7’ high doors so they’re only useful for stuff such as cars, lawnmowers, flatbed trailers, and other short stuff. The three basements and pole barn all have 9’ doors so they’re more suitable for bigger items such as the tractors, enclosed cargo trailer, etc. The tractors live in brother’s old house. The basement vehicle bay in my house is mostly open as it’s used for any mechanical work that requires a lot of tools as that’s where most of the tools are. The only big thing in the basement at dad’s old house was a 8’ enclosed trailer. The bay is 60’ deep so there was a good bit of room in front of it.
All that was working swell until I lost my mind one day about a week ago and bought a boat. Wife and I have talked about getting a boat off and on for probably 20 years. Closest we’d gotten was a canoe and a pair of kayaks. We enjoyed those very much for years, but wife really wanted something with a motor and that she could be really comfortable in. Last week while we were talking about it yet again, I said something to the effect that we ain’t getting any younger so if you ever want a boat, put on your shoes and meet me in the truck in 30 minutes. A few hours later we drive back home with a shiny new 19’, 200hp, Yamaha AR190 jet boat. The tower folds, so it fits through a 9’ door. I have an available bay at the basement of dad’s house so we should be all set with a place to store it in a pretty decent climate controlled building.
Putting it in the available bay is a little challenging, but not bad. Drive through the traffic circle past dad’s house, head toward the pond to get sort of straight, then back through the circle in sort of a serpentine path to get it through the door. Great.Getting out can be done, but it isn’t ideal. To get out, it’s either pull down toward the pond and then back up through a series of curves up a moderately steep hill about 300’ to get to a place to turn around, or continue around the traffic circle to the exit for the main road. Obvious long term is the latter option.
Two issues with that. The turn around on that end of the flattened circle shape is tighter than I would like for a 4 door pickup pulling a 19’ boat on a 22’+ trailer. I’m missing large trees on the outside of the turn with the front of the truck by about 2” and the boat trailer has about 3” clearance from a Virginia pine on the inside of the circle. Except for that be pine, it’s good. That particular pine is dead so pretty obvious it had to go.
I’ve cut a lot of trees. This wasn’t a big tree. Probably around 80’ tall, but only around 16” at the base. I was not excited at all to cut this tree. Almost embarrassed to admit I didn’t notice it was dead until the bark started sloughing off the base about 6 months ago. By that time it was pretty rotten. Rotten enough it could have large limbs coming out of it while cutting, could break in half for no good reason while falling and top go who knows where, may be no way to leave “holding wood” for a hinge because it may not have enough integrity left to hold anything. It’s also leaning the wrong way so it has to be pulled.
Put the bush hog back in the shed and put on the winch. Set a choker about 12’ up on the trunk and hooked up the winch. I was thinking it’s so rotten, before cutting on it at all, it might be worth pulling on it some. At least maybe shake out anything that’s about to fall off anyway before I start cutting and stuff falls on me. I know it’s hard to see the winch line in pics, but it is there. The tree is the spindly pine with the arrow pointing at it.
Was pleasantly surprised the winch pulled the whole thing over. Came over about half way and hung in a big sweet gum. Kept pulling and it broke in half with the top leaning back into a nearby beech.
Reset the choker on the top section and pulled it out of the beech.
Swapped the winch for the chipper. Chipped all the <5” stuff.
Grappled the four sections of the trunk to the scrap log pile. The base was so rotten, I was able to rip the bottom section off the stump with the grapple. That left this mass of splinters.
Swapped the chipper for the stump grinder.
No more splintery stump.
All done. I don’t know how I got anything done with our old equipment. I suppose it was probably because we used to have more people.
Last edited:
When using my grapple to move and pile brush I have had the brush push up and unlock the SSQA lever on one side. Luckily I noticed it before anything broke or bent. This is not uncommon. Since then, I secure the levers down in their locked position when working brush. I have seen that others do the same. Some simply use bungies. I lock mine with a bolt/clamp that passes thru a couple convenient holes that are in the loader arms.
gg
What type of grapple do you have? I haven't used my grapple a lot to move brush, but I'm not sure how it would unlatch the SSQA pins. Do you happen to have a picture looking towards the SSQA handles with the grapple on the tractor? Would like to compare what it looks like to mine to see if this is something I need to look out for and maybe come up with something like what you have done.
NCL4701
Well-known member
Equipment
L4701, T2290, WC68, grapple, BB1572, Farmi W50R, Howes 500, 16kW IMD gen, WG24
Nice!
I had a fallen red cedar pop one of mine open a couple years ago. Right side came off with a pretty heavy unbalanced load in the grapple. Bent the torque tube bad enough I couldn’t get the grapple back on the right side or off the left side. Of course I was on the far side of our place on a tight trail with little maneuvering room. An hour and a half with a chainsaw, sledge hammer, and pushing on a large tree with one side of the loader got it off and back on. Not one of my better days.
After that, I always tie mine down regardless what I have on the loader even though the grapple is probably the only thing that really needs it.
I bought the tractor used in 2017. I took this picture at the Previous owners house. It has a bucket but shows the SSQA levers.
I put on a FrostBite grapple to use for woods work - loading logs, clearing tractor roads, and firewood. You can see it is wide open behind the SSQA plate where the levers are.
Much of the brush work is actually with trees that I want to clear off of a tractor road not brush.
This is one from a while back. Just want to get it off the road and let it rot in the woods.
I cut it into road wide sections and then to grab them I come down from the top using the ground as a back stop so they don't get pushed away from me with all the stiff branches.
I'll stack a couple sections if I can
All those stiff branches getting crushed together can push the levers up - They hit the grill guard and might bend back towards the rear of the SSQA plate.
Then I stash them some where in the woods off the road near by. So you can see I need a good grill guard and lower front end protection and locks on the SSQA levers.
gg