Sandy Comes To Aid Of Her Brother James

James, Sandy’s brother dropped over one evening last week for a visit. During our conversation he was telling us how busy he was in the oil patch. One big project coming up was the brush hogging of one of the oil field leases. A brush hog is a type of rotary mower. Typically these mowers attach to the back of a farm tractor using the three-point hitch and are driven via the Power take-off (PTO). It has blades that are not rigidly attached to the drive like a lawnmower blade, but are on hinges so if the blade hits a rock or stump, it bounces backward and inward, and then inertia makes it go outwards again. The rotary blades are not sharpened in the same way as a conventional mower blade. They are usually quite dull so they whack through dense plant growth, where a sharp blade will get stuck or slowed down. The blades are very heavy, up to an inch thick, so the momentum pulling out is stronger than the forces of the vegetation bouncing in. They are made of heat treated high carbon steel that can withstand strikes with hard objects such as rock sand stones.

He said it was about 360 acres of mowing and would require the use of both of his Kubota's one with a batwing brush hog (cuts about a 15ft path) and the second a single 7ft brush hog. He has one of his brothers running the batwing brush hog and he would normally run the single but he couldn't because he had some other big project going on.

Then out of the blue I heard this come from Sandy's mouth "I would like to help you if you think I could run the mower." I nearly fell out of my chair and said "honey do you realize what you are asking you've never mowed with a large tractor with a brush hog." Her response was I can learn can't I.

 

So yesterday Sandy received mowing lessons from her brother about what all those levers, pedals, PTO and switches were inside the cockpit of the Kubota. It wasn't long and she was mowing the back three acres to the south of our motorhome and she did an outstanding job. I am so proud of her........oh me of little faith.

While sandy was mowing I helped her brother’s pickup old dead tree limbs and lumber. Had us a good fire that evening. It burned well into the evening and we set near by enjoying our BL and stories of yesteryear.  

So, this morning she was up at 4:45am and left for the oil lease to help brush hog the 360 acres. Her brother figures it will take about three to four weeks for this project. Can't wait to hear how her day went.

 

On anther note Sandy’s sister Pam and her husband Mike dropped over after Easter Services Sunday and brought about six azalea plants they had dug up from their flower bed.  They worked all afternoon transplanting those into our flower bed. Wow! what a difference it makes around our place. Thanks Pam and Mike for your efforts.

Until next time. . . .MtnAire Travlers.