Diggin It

Digging It

 The last two days involved moving rubble; actually not rubble, per sey, but moving river material.  The Lamb Center, an orphanage sponsored by SP is in their building program.  The foundation is laid and they are assembling rebar for the support columns used throughout the building.  Behind the building was a large low spot and they needed fill material brought in to raise the land up so it would stay dry. 

On Monday Travis, my boss, drove the wheeled loader a couple of miles to the river where we were met by four hired trucks since ours were elsewhere.  He loaded up two of them and said, “There you go, just keep them all full and coming”.  So I was introduced to the CAT 950 Front End Loader. 

It really is an awesome machine …. Michelle can appreciate me using that word since I accuse her of using it so much that it has a redundant meaning …. But for me to use it must mean something….and it does; that machine is awesome.  I felt so intimidated at first since my stuff was over fifty years old.  This guy was almost new with only 1400 hours on it.  I got in the operator’s seat …. Oh what a nice seat.  It goes all over the place to make you comfy…not even counting a sturdy and well padded vinyl cushions and air seat that bounces up and down when you go over bumps or rough spots.  I digress … I got in the operators seat and perused the controls and joy sticks….and, oh, what a joy they are.  They are color coordinated to the seat – did I tell you what an awesome seat it has?  I digress.  I played with all the controls that make the bucket go up and down, tilt and retract …. Worked with the buttons for forward and reverse, learned the steering response and got to work.  Out of all the machines I’ve ever run, this one was easiest to learn.  In ten minutes I could run it …. In an hour I was operating it fairly good.  By days end I was doing just fine.  I loaded 41 large dump trucks that day.  They continually shuttled to the job site where Robert spread the fill material with the CAT D 6.

It ended up being a long day…..long in the sense of mental energy focusing on operating a very new, very large piece of equipment. 

Today was a long day, too.  I camped in the river bed again loading more fill material, probably another 40 loads or so.  That should be enough as Robert had spread it and made a small hill out of the balance.  I ended up with a hole the size of the Madison pond and kind of hated to see it go.  I was going to take some photos of the jobsite but put it off until I forgot about it….maybe the next time.