Mud. Deep Mud. Even Deeper Mud

People in traffic jams are an easy audience. In this picture you can see the freeway that forms the south property line of my farm, (look at the top right) It's elevated a good 20' above the land, so that cars on the highway get a good view of anything I happen to be doing.

So when I'm doing something interesting -- like digging my tractor out of the deep mud with a shovel -- I get phone calls (my phone number is listed on a big sign that faces the freeway) and people honk and wave.

That's me looking at my kubota 9580 4x4 tractor, stuck in the mud. The mud has completely filled all of the traction ribs on the tires making them smooth. The rear axle of the tractor is on the ground. This is the 3rd time this year I've stuck my tractor, so I'm getting pretty good at getting it out. This time it only took an hour or so of digging to do it.


The hardest part is that the mud sticks to the shovel, and my hands, and everything. I'm standing calf-deep in the mud, so I have to pull and pull and pull three times to get my foot up without pulling it out of the boot.


The ground is so soft right here that my bucket won't lift the front of the tractor. So I'm bringing this timber over to put under the bucket. You can see from the tracks here that I've passed over this area several times with the tractor, but that was before the flood, and the ground is even softer than usual now.
Here I've raised the front wheels from the mud, and I'll put 4x4 cribbing in under them to give them some lift.

So enjoy the show folks.