At Home In The Woods

[firefighter9208]

Obed,

The house looks great and the baby is adorable.

Word of caution: Make sure that you keep a check with the appropriate county lein office. I have a friend that had a contractor building his house. In the middle of the build he noticed that the subs quit showing up. The contractor had quit paying the subs and for materials.

My friend got a lawyer and terminated his contract with the contractor. He completed the house as his own GC.

When he went to close on the construction loan he found that several leins had been levied against the house. Including one for over $30,000 in building materials. He also had leins from various subs that hadn't been paid.

In order to close on the house he had to pay off the building materials and all the subs that had not been paid. This was on the advise of a lawyer. He then had to sue the GC to recover these costs. Guess what??? The GC went bankrupt and left my friend holding the bag.

He ended up paying out almost $80,000 (out of savings) for items that had already been drawn against the construction loan. Basically he paid for many items twice.

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade. I just wanted you to be aware of his situation.

Chris

 

[Obed]

Pulled this truck out of my pond yesterday
Please forgive the poor quality of the photos. I took them with my phone.

Friday night at 9:45 PM my wife noticed lights and vehicle noise down at our natural pond in the woods. I went down there to see what was happening. Three guys around 20 years old were down there with their 4WD Toyota. They had driven the truck on a 4 wheeler path through our woods. When they tried to turn around at our pond, they backed into the mud and buried the truck down to the frame.

They had a come-along. So I went and got a chain so they could hook up the come-along to a tree. The come-along broke. I told them to come back the next day and I would pull the truck out with my tractor. They had another vehicle at the street so they left.

When they arrived the next afternoon I drove my tractor down to the truck. I had never been down there with my tractor. I had to drive my tractor down to the bottom of the ridge on our paved neighborhood street then enter my property from the bottom of the hill. I then drove my tractor on the 4 wheeler path to where the truck was stuck.

My first attempt to pull the truck out failed. My tractor tires just spun. I gave the guys a maddock and shovel and told them to dig around the truck wheels. I was able to pull them out on the second attempt.

If you look behind the truck, you can see the ruts in the mud. Our "pond" is a natural pond; it was never built. The dirt around the pond is just topsoil and is not something you want to drive a vehicle on.
The episode cost me an hour Friday night and 2 hours Saturday. The driver of the truck told me he would never come on my property again. I was nice to them but told them I didn't want trucks driving through the woods and I didn't want anybody in the woods at night.

 

[EddieWalker]

Good job getting them out.

Next time you might want to try using the backhoe. Just park the tractor and extend the hoe stick. Attach the chain to the bucket and use it to pull it out. I do this fairly often and never have any problems. I've pulled my smaller tractor when it's buried to the engine and the mower is under the mud, without any problems. I've pulled my duptruck out this way with five yards of dirt in it. I've pulled a JD 450G dozer out sideways when it got too close to my small pond and slid in. I pulled a big flatbed delivery truck with a load of lumber out when it sunk into the soft dirt when it left the gravel road. Of course, when my dump truck went swimming, my neighbor showed up just after it happened, and we used his and my backhoes to pull it out. It went over a bit of dropoff and then into the pond. I don't know how long it would have taken by myself, but with two backhoes, it was real easy.

Eddie

 

[jayste]

Good job getting them out.

Next time you might want to try using the backhoe. Just park the tractor and extend the hoe stick. Attach the chain to the bucket and use it to pull it out. I do this fairly often and never have any problems. I've pulled my smaller tractor when it's buried to the engine and the mower is under the mud, without any problems. I've pulled my duptruck out this way with five yards of dirt in it. I've pulled a JD 450G dozer out sideways when it got too close to my small pond and slid in. I pulled a big flatbed delivery truck with a load of lumber out when it sunk into the soft dirt when it left the gravel road. Of course, when my dump truck went swimming, my neighbor showed up just after it happened, and we used his and my backhoes to pull it out. It went over a bit of dropoff and then into the pond. I don't know how long it would have taken by myself, but with two backhoes, it was real easy.

Eddie

I thought the same thing Eddie said when I read your post. I have a coworker who owns a dozer and a trackhoe. He says any time he has to pull someone out he uses the hoe simply because the hydraulics of the hoe is better that using his dozer. He even has a winch on his dozer but prefers the hoe for that kind of work.

 

[hitekcountry]

Obed

I was going to send you this before but couldn't find it last time. I just stumbled on it again. There is some priceless information on this web site, the more you poke around the more you'll see what I mean.

Code College Online Training

 

[2manyrocks]

It was kind of you to pull those knuckleheads out of the mud.

Now that we're getting some decent weather, you will see faster progress.

 

[hitekcountry]

It was kind of you to pull those knuckleheads out of the mud.

Obed you're a much nicer person than I am.

 

[sld]

What's a guy supposed to do? We were all punk kids at one time. At least I was always respectful so if the kids weren't real jerks I would've cut them some slack too.

Plus, making a big deal out of it would be like making enemies. Then you are always looking over your shoulder and expecting the worst.

Good job Obed.

 

[Bartcephus]

I would have pulled them out too. Someday, they may be helping others...

 

[Obed]

Obed

I was going to send you this before but couldn't find it last time. I just stumbled on it again. There is some priceless information on this web site, the more you poke around the more you'll see what I mean.

Code College Online Training

This site looks very helpful. Thanks!