jeffinsgf
Veteran Member
This thread seems to be headed in two directions, but c'est la vie.
I have to report to Henro and txhawg that I had a little wake up call today and immediately thought of them. Henro's "unexpected" post hit home with me before I started my day. In addition, I was doing some soul searching on being too cocky about things that I could control as long as I was paying attention. Both of those points aside, I hooked up my MX-5 rotary cutter this morning and headed into my woods for some high density path clearing.
The first part of the story starts with my purchase a few days ago of a John Deere iMatch quick hitch. It came with one set of bushings and the "good ol' boy" salesman at my dealership told me, "Nobody uses those -- just hook up to the pins the way they are." I decided not to take his advice and bought some bushings for all the implements I intended on using with the iMatch. Unfortunately, when I tried them yesterday, they were the wrong inside diameter. This morning, I tossed off the problem by recalling salesman Rob's advise to just hook to the pins. So, I headed off into the woods with a 65hp rotary cutter loosely connected to my tractor and my ROPS folded. About 2 hours into the morning, I was getting pretty comfortable with what I could knock down and chop up. There's quite a bit of deadfall in my woods, and I had developed a method to deal with it. If it was in my path, I would drive over it, and then when the cutter got close, I would lift the cutter to pass over the deadfall and continue on my normal line of travel. That worked just fine until I hit a log just a little bigger than the others and close to some smaller logs and all of it on just a bit of a slope. As I glanced back to check the cutter, I saw the pins pop out of the iMatch and the rotary cutter set down on top of the 8 inch deadfall log spinning at full speed. Luckily, it set down on the stump jumper and I hit the brakes and the PTO switch before I pulled the drive line apart. After 10 or 15 minutes fooling around trying to get the hitch reattached with it and my tractor setting at odd angles on top of this log pile I remembered my own words here about common sense. I unhooked the drive line and drove back to the barn for a chain to move some of the deadfall. I was lucky.
After I got it back together, I started thinking about Henro's "unexpected" and decided try a new approach. Despite lots of low hanging obstacles, I put up the ROPS, hooked up the driveline again and headed back for more. In the mid afternoon, I decided to try the seatbelt, too. It wasn't as bad as I envisioned and used it the rest of the day.
Even in low range, low speed, things -- bad things -- can happen awfully quick. I think I'll quit whining about my ROPS and learn to live with it. I'm going bushing shopping tomorrow, too.
I have to report to Henro and txhawg that I had a little wake up call today and immediately thought of them. Henro's "unexpected" post hit home with me before I started my day. In addition, I was doing some soul searching on being too cocky about things that I could control as long as I was paying attention. Both of those points aside, I hooked up my MX-5 rotary cutter this morning and headed into my woods for some high density path clearing.
The first part of the story starts with my purchase a few days ago of a John Deere iMatch quick hitch. It came with one set of bushings and the "good ol' boy" salesman at my dealership told me, "Nobody uses those -- just hook up to the pins the way they are." I decided not to take his advice and bought some bushings for all the implements I intended on using with the iMatch. Unfortunately, when I tried them yesterday, they were the wrong inside diameter. This morning, I tossed off the problem by recalling salesman Rob's advise to just hook to the pins. So, I headed off into the woods with a 65hp rotary cutter loosely connected to my tractor and my ROPS folded. About 2 hours into the morning, I was getting pretty comfortable with what I could knock down and chop up. There's quite a bit of deadfall in my woods, and I had developed a method to deal with it. If it was in my path, I would drive over it, and then when the cutter got close, I would lift the cutter to pass over the deadfall and continue on my normal line of travel. That worked just fine until I hit a log just a little bigger than the others and close to some smaller logs and all of it on just a bit of a slope. As I glanced back to check the cutter, I saw the pins pop out of the iMatch and the rotary cutter set down on top of the 8 inch deadfall log spinning at full speed. Luckily, it set down on the stump jumper and I hit the brakes and the PTO switch before I pulled the drive line apart. After 10 or 15 minutes fooling around trying to get the hitch reattached with it and my tractor setting at odd angles on top of this log pile I remembered my own words here about common sense. I unhooked the drive line and drove back to the barn for a chain to move some of the deadfall. I was lucky.
After I got it back together, I started thinking about Henro's "unexpected" and decided try a new approach. Despite lots of low hanging obstacles, I put up the ROPS, hooked up the driveline again and headed back for more. In the mid afternoon, I decided to try the seatbelt, too. It wasn't as bad as I envisioned and used it the rest of the day.
Even in low range, low speed, things -- bad things -- can happen awfully quick. I think I'll quit whining about my ROPS and learn to live with it. I'm going bushing shopping tomorrow, too.
