Change in plans

Yesterday was to be a productive day of stripping the bark off of timbers and doing some odd jobs around the ranch.. I did spend two hours taking the bark off of timbers, but after only one load of gravel to fill in a low crossing between pastures, I was suddenly sidetracked. I had to spend over 4 hours getting the tractor out of a soft spot on the other side of a gravel bar. Through lots of digging, lifting, cutting, hoping, and maneuvering, I was finally able to get the tractor unstuck. Unfortunately I was still in the wrong place, and the pit where I was stuck was between me and the pastures where I needed to go. I needed another plan.

So plan B was to work my way upstream of the usual crossing, and find another. I hit pay dirt with a good rocky crossing with a hard bottom. Well I thought I hit pay dirt.. Once across that bit, the last 15 feet to the pasture turned into pure bog. Before I could begin to back up the tractor sunk in about a foot. I worked at trying to get it out for about an hour or more, before giving up for the day exhausted, frustrated, and wondering just how I was going to get this beast back up onto dry land once again.

That was yesterday. Today began with a trip down to the tractor, and a few hours of digging, bracing, moving timbers under the tires, and trying to use a come-along to pull the tractor out. The end result: I am more tired than I was and the tractor is still where it was yesterday.

I have a call in to a neighbor who helps on the ranch and who borrows equipment from time to time in hopes of getting his tractor over here to get it stuck as well.. sorry I interjected a prediction there.. the hope is that he will be able to use his tractor to pull this one out.

In the meantime I still had to feed the herd of cows, but without the tractor to move the bales down to them. So in the barn I began taking apart a large round bale and moving it by hand to a small four wheel drive utility vehicle. Once that was full, I took a load down to the cows. 5 trips later they are fed.. for the morning. I will need to do this yet again this afternoon. The end result" I am even more tired yet.. and expect to simply collapse, probably from a stroke or heart attack, immediately after feeding the cows this afternoon.

As they say, some days it does not pay to get out of bed.

Tomorrow will be better. It is what it is.. any other suggestions for platitudes?