New tractor!

[NHRich]

Moving some of the rip-rap. The bucket's only about half-full here, but I had no problem with lifting and moving a full bucket, except for getting the rip-rap into the bucket inthe first place. My tooth bar isn't here yet, and the way all of that sharp-edged rock locks together (which is the reason to use it for stream-bed work), I ended up having to load a lot of the stone into the bucket by hand, and my back sure feels it.

--Rich

 

[NHRich]

Leftovers from the boulders and rip-rap piles-- I used all of the rest of this on the larger of the two streams, where it was starting to undercut the bridge a bit. Dropping all of this accurately onto the bank over the railing of the bridge without doing any damage to the rails and wood structure, or the trees on the edge of the stream bank was a bit of a challenge. I'll post a pic of that when I get a chance.

--Rich

 

[NHRich]

Still wish I had a bigger door on the barn...

--Rich

 

[NHRich]

Was just thinking my comment about the telescoping lower arms on the 3 pt hitch and the backhoe might confuse some folks. The Kioti BH is subframe mounted, and doesn't use the 3 pt arms. What I meant to say was that the telescoping arms make it easier to take other implements on and off when swapping them out with the BH.

--Rich

 

[BigAl]

Enjoy it ! I also have a DK45 with about 60 hours on it now . They are unbelievable in power and pull !!! Keep and eye on the front pins where your bucket mounts . My bolts were backing out when I checked mine . I also bent my sub frame on the hoe pulling a large stump ,so be careful . Ripping the old gravel drive I ripped a ripper right out of the 4x4 square tube frame on my Kioti box blade . It hooked a big old rock and before I could stop the damage was done. I was not going fast but was in 4wd . I love my tractor . Best tractor I have ever owned !
Big Al

 

[NHRich]

Thanks, I'll make sure and keep an eye on those front pins. Sorry to hear about your box blade-- the only damage I've done so far was to put a kink in one side of the pin that holds the angle on the back blade while I was regrading my road. I had the 84" blade tilted, offset to max, and highly angled, and it puts a lot of stress on that pin. Just flipped the pin around and it's fine, but I did lessen my amount of cut a bit after that /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif The tractor definitely has more pulling power than I thought it might.

More work to do today -- getting the whole road crowned and leveled smooth is tougher than it looks. Going to be in Texas for a week or two helping with some work down there, so I'm trying to get all of this pre-winter work done before I leave tomorrow...

--Rich

 

[NHRich]

Pic of quick and dirty stream revetment (boulders covered with rip-rap) to help prevent erosion at the base of my bridge footings. I'd had some boulders and rip-rap delivered to do erosion control on the other stream bank, when I saw that I really needed to do some quick work here as well.

The challenge here was to drop the loads over the side of the bridge without taking out the railing, braces, or the small trees on the bank (what's helping hold the bank together).

--Rich

 

[NHRich]

Side view of revetment, showing some of the erosion damage. We had a very wet spring and summer, and the stream was running very high for a lot longer than usual. I really need to get more material under there as soon as I can.

--Rich

 

[NHRich]

What you do not want to see under your bridge. It could be much worse, but I'm glad I caught this in time.

--Rich

 

[NHRich]

View upstream from the bridge. The water is a couple of feet higher after a good rain, particularly during spring thaw.

I'm thinking about putting a boulder weir and some kind of small microhydro turbine in here when I get a chance. Don't want to mess with the brook trout, though -- them's good eating /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

--Rich