There's A Hole In The Bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza

I can remember when I was much younger, and what the fields looked like on this place. Nice green pastures, big Cottonwood trees down by the ditches, and wide spaces between the ditches that Dad baled hay, and cows grazed peacefully.

That was before the infestation of the Cedar trees....

Now, there are places back there that a rabbit needs a chainsaw to get through. It's a huge battle - one the trees seem to be winning. When my wife's dad saw those cedars when we first bought the place, his first comment was "Pray for lightning....".

Well, it's not exactly lightning, but they will get "toasted" eventually. The first part of the process is to cut them down.

That is where my neighbor comes in. He has a nice, heavy-duty tree shear mounted on his skid steer. One of those big units that can chomp through a tree 18" thick. Over the last few days, he has been out there, chomping as many trees as he can, and I have been out there trying to keep the downed trees out of his way.

We've only been at it for about 4-5 hours total, but have gotten a pretty good "dent" in the "forest". Unfortunately, there are several thousand of the little weeds out there.

Yesterday afternoon, we spent about 2 hours at it. When I got back to the house, I fell off the tractor and discovered I wasn't the only one hurting.



The bucket was never in real great shape - it was rusted through in places and getting REAL thin. Now, there is a "head sized" hole in the back of it! It's not real weldable, either, the metal is just about wore out, and corroded to death - it would be like trying to weld a pop can - only a rusty one.

I have been on the lookout for a different bucket since we got the tractor 2 years ago. I guess I'll have to step up my efforts.