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| Topic: Mudd Trail |
| Date: 2010-09-20 08:15:01 |
| Message: I'm going to tell a fairly long story, and then deliver the punch at the end. So hang in there with me through this text heavy post, and enjoy the ride; I know I did! This past weekend it rained, and rained and rained. Friday afternoon was great, but Friday night through Sunday was nothing but rain. Finally on Sunday the rain broke down to a small mist, and then finally quit. With the kids itching to get out of the house, we burst through the garage and out into the driveway. Emmett drug out his bike, and was circling through the puddles, oblivious to the spray of water coming off his back tire and onto his clothes. Dad and Garrison hopped onto the tractor for a little mudin' trip. There was definitely mud- it was 4-6 inches deep, and had a clay like texture. As soon as Emmett heard the tractor fire up, he dropped his bike and ran over saying: "Me too, let me on too." A few moments of fiddling with the choke, the throttle and cranking of the starter motor, it roared to life. With a fresh oil change, tires topped off with air, greased bearings and cotter pins locked into place on the drive shaft, we were off. As we drove through the grass, Emmett was at the wheel navigating, and Garrison was bouncing on my lap with excitement. We rounded the corner past the cedars and headed down to what we can now refer to as "the mud pit." It's a 10' x 20' section of dirt that turned into deep mud with the weekend rain. I must admit, Emmett looked a little scared as I revved the throttle from half to full open and jammed it from 3rd to 5th gear lurching us all forward at an even greater speed down hill towards the mud pit. Once we left the grass and hit the pit area, we immediately sank several inches into the mud. Emmett leaned over to the side to look around behind me to see what the problem was. Big chunks of mud went wizzing past his face as the tires were churning up the ground and spitting it out everywhere. I cut the wheel sharp to the right, and the back end of the tractor slid completely around the mud pit just missing a maple tree. With forward momentum still in our favor, we started to climb the hill out of the pit. Under full open throttle, Garrison was enjoying the vibration of the motor and was bouncing up and down; then it happened. We lost our forward momentum, and started to slide back down into the pit, even though the wheels were still spinning in forward under full throttle. Emmett's smile quickly faded into a look of panic. With mud raining down all around us, we were sliding back down into the pit, straight towards the maple we narrowly just missed moments ago. Shifting Emmett to my other leg and out of the way, I shifted from 5th gear into reverse, cut the wheel hard and backed out into a shallower part of the pit. Now easing it back into forward, we crept through the edges of the pit working our way though the gears once again building our forward momentum. Just a little further, a little more, ahh- there we made it back across the pit and onto grass. When the wheels caught solid ground and we were back out of the pit, Emmett's grip loosened and color returned to his face. That is, until I circled and went back in for another round. After a few trips through the pit, we decided to return to the garage. Zipping across the grass, we lost a bunch of the mud that was caked onto the wheels, deck and motor, but Emmett wanted to get a picture of the tractor anyways. I told him I'd post a picture of his big ole' muddin' tractor.  |
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