OK...I win...hands down !! It's only been 3 weeks since my last confession.
Last week I took down a 60-70' tree from the back corner of the house that had died due to too much back-fill pushed against it when I built the house. No big deal. Decided to have a guy come out and dig out the stump out for me, as I don't have a back hoe. So I called the 811 utility marking number to have the lines marked that were near the stump. Elec guy comes out, marks it, and he's on his way in 5 minutes. Gas guy comes out while I'm working on moving a pile of dirt at the bottom of the hill by the driveway culverts (see pic 1...dirt is gone but flat spot at bottom of hill and to the left of tractor shows where I was).
He stops and I tell him where the gas meter and line are up next to the house and stump. 15 minutes later he hasn't left yet, so I take a peak from down below, and he's at the top of the hill waving me up.
So I drive the tractor up there, park it, shut it down and dis-mount.
Start talking to the guy to tell him where the line is, since he can't find it, and about 2 minutes pass, and all of a sudden he yells " Oh "crap"...your tractor". I turn and look around to see my tractor rolling down the hill towards the trees (see pic2). I start to run after it, but it's really got a head of steam at the point, and is gaining speed...rapidly. I distinctly remember thinking to myself..."this is gonna hurt". (notice the tree right behind the tractor in pic 2)
About 20' before the tractor hits the tree near the bottom of the hill, it starts to turn slowly. Believe it or not, it went right between the two trees, never hit a thing, and came to rest next to my elevated driveway which acted like a backstop for it. If the driveway hadn't been there, it would have rolled another 50-100' I'm sure.
As it was, the distance it traveled (backing up, mind you) was over 300'. My tractor has a habit of shifting out of Medium range, and into Neutral if you "just look at it" while going down hill. So that's why it wasn't held back by the transmission. Oh...did I mention I forgot to set the parking brake?
Told the utility guy I should go by a lottery ticket.
