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After spending many thousands of hours operating heavy equipment in my lifetime I must say that guy did a nice job grading with that excavator. Looks like now you’re ready for some serious mid-mount grader blade action!!

Got them on about everything that gets the oil changed. No, not cheap but worth every penny to me.

Starting 7 or 9 years ago and averaging every couple, we've had a portion of the acreage fairly close to the house cleared of tree stumps and rocks, then flattened out. We began by adding a second driveway which forms a half circle off the larger older one. Then we had the garden area created. The entire area of the now 4 year old barn was built. Then another expansion off to the left of the garden. This year we began felling trees off to the right side of the house building knowing we wanted to get the excavator back and have him do the same treatment as the whole garden space. Rip out and pile up stumps, trees, rocks, etc. Reorganize. Recontour. Bury some. Stack some. Flatten some... Repeat. This is the closest I could get to a before n after. This is taken after 3 loads (14 or 18 cubic yards) were brought in to raise the area. This is almost the final product. This new flat spot will be the home of the camper house (carport ish) metal building. Couple more in progress pics. There's now a small ramp off the back right corner that a tractor would fit down. This'll give us access to the whole right side of the house for future wood processing. Also gives us a full tractor driveable path all the way around the house once the ground dries out. Another big part of this year's work was creating a nice wide long flat spot behind and below the barn. This'll be specifically for tractors, tractor storage, parts, machinery, etc. The intention is to move the 13 x 20 portable garage down from barn level to the new lower space. Also build another portable garage with the frame we got from my mom. 12 x 20 I believe? Both of those will eventually be covered with corogated type metal roofing like the barn and house already have. He had to lay over several trees and do a LOT of material movement for this. Here's a few odd angled pics of the area. I'll try to get a better view later. From the house deck. From the left side. For scale, that shed is 20 feet long but at a distant view. From below and behind. The portable garage by the barn is the 13 x 20. Another side view. We've been considering having a 4WD/ AWD vehicle usable path cut through the forest over past the barn for several years. Really since we got the garden area created and had need for moving materials down there. We'll still be adding size to that and of course adding loam and manure every year so we got the cut done this time. He felled a bunch of small to medium trees to clear the spot. The operator then used a portion of the old ramp, along with a large amount of material from a hole he dug, along with a full truckload of 1.5 inch max crushed stone, to rebuild the ramp for us. I find it extremely interesting that a professional excavator can look at our property and just KNOW where to dig for certain things. Yesterday he pointed to a spot and said, "I bet I can get gravel there." I reminded him about the rocks and ledge and he showed me a mound. A friggin mound. Somehow he knew that was not rocks but a place to harvest gravel. Here's that hole about half done. Several shots of the new ramp down to the forest, in various phases. Following the curve to the left here, it faces the garden area at the bottom. The last portion of the work was rebuilding some drainage and redirection of water flow to improve towards the frog pond and then to the forest. This is facing up towards the road on the far right of the house. The mo-chine.

We carved a place in the hill 25 plus years ago. Amazing how a good operator just looks and then sees potential issues. We had a 4' diameter white oak stump, (tree got stuck by lightning and split), right in the middle. The guy ask, "what are your plans for the extra dirt and root ball" He said that root is going to be huge. The neighbor let me toss it into a ravine on his place. We had a medium size dozer with a bucket and it could not pick it up he had to drag it. I thought we could just spread out the dirt but nope, way to much, covered the root ball and made a spot for the other neighbor to park during winter cause the driveway was steep and he was to cheap to get a 4x4.(liked walking up the hill in ankle deep snow a lot) Our biggest issue with the hill was diverting run off, It can be tricky and not always looks the way you think it is going to work. If you get a couple inches of rain in an afternoon that really adds up. That transit can be your friend.

I do the same with my bread and butter pickle juice. I use half onion and half cucumber sliced thin. Fantastic is the word.

When we had the farm cleared of undesirable brush and trees. Watching the trackhoe operator was fascinating. He could be moving the machine, swinging the bucket and begin digging at the same time.

Cool, at this rate, you might want to start looking for a good sized mowing deck @ebinmaine. You might need it.

Only one question: You telling me BBT couldn't handle that with the fleet??? Couple hours tops...

All fine and dandy until a stick ... which you should have picked up before ... jumps up and opens the valve and decides to oil the deck. Luckily you saw it happen in time. So then you remove the handle and promptly forget where you put it at oil change time. Since SWMBO isn't around 953nut gets the blame ...

My new to me D160 came with a paint job that I think was done in a hay barn. If you ran your hand over the hood it was ruff. You could feel and see all sorts of imbedded dirt in the paint. I took some #2000 paper and did a light wet sand followed up with a orbital polisher and it came out shiny and smooth as glass.

I installed a Fumoto valve in my M14 Kohler to make oil drains easier. To drain the oil in my 314-8, I had to remove the deck or use a Mityvac vacuum evacuator. Any other methods would end up in a mess with oil spilled some where. Given enough rain and sunshine I cut every 4-5 days in the growing season for 3+ hours a tour. 25 hour services roll around quickly. The Fumoto valve has a nipple that a 3/8 soft clear tube plugs onto to direct the flow of waste oil to a drain pan. No more bending license plates and trying to work around obsructions or trying to get the the vacuum hose past the tube and into the crankcase of the Magnum engine.

I used to work in a plant that made propellers for aircraft the original ones that you see on all the war planes. And I got to know a lot of other guys in maintenance and they also said the same thing. Timken bearings are top notch very expensive but you know the saying you get what you pay for. I like the progress that you’re making this project. Keep it up.

Not sure if this B-80 would be better suited to snow or mule duties: They may be small, but I got a heart of a lion. Very hard to kill those B 80s as long as you maintain them. I think I’ve had about four in my time.

Absolutely agreed. A good excavator operator can use that giant arm as an extension of their own. As a crane operator and a person who appreciates larger machinery in general, watching this guy work is always extremely impressive.

First light is less than 2 hours out. Rain continues. I think for the sake of it, I’ll stick it out and hope something cruises through! There is supposed to be a break about 7 am for an hour or so. Maybe things will be moving, but the wetness should help over my travels.

Hard to disagree with that but if I tallied up what I spent on truck loads of fill for 40 years I coulda bought a nice flat spot in the country and really put up some out buildings. Did I mention I come from a long line of builders and trying to find a flat spot to build on here is like the man who went crazy in a silo ... couldn't find a corner to crap in. Worst part is the flat ground I did have I put in evergreens and can't bring myself to cut them down. Nobody told me years ago they were gonna grow and become a nice woods.

Nope. Mountain life is the best. Just gotta make adaptations.

Looks to me like your tired of living on a hill. Ask me how I know. Someday yer gonna finger out $h1T runs downhill.

https://wpitradio.com/comedy/video/eejfbcnu

Great project. I’d love to add a 551 to my collection. I made a pair of weights similar to those for my 401. Ford Taurus rotors with the vents filled with molten lead, then machined the outer edge smooth on the brake lathe for a finished look. Bolted to the wheel with 2 bolts, then sandwiched between the hub and wheel. They’re around 25 pounds each.

Video from Trina

Here's a passel o' pics from Trina. Good straight on view of the new camper house spot. Several angles of same. This is the ramp off the back side. This is a good straight view of the flat spot behind the barn. Here's where the new vehicle usable path will eventually continue down the hill, to the left of the hemlock tree, and bend right, towards the garden. We will likely need a culvert just past the tree. There are other pics showing the V shaped water course. The rest are various views of the project from different viewpoints.

Today would have been @Stormin's birthday, we miss you.

Looks nice with the hood on!

Brings back memories of two HS summers as a house/barn painter. Hard, honest work and well paid. We had a 40’ ladder that I used often and could handle myself--ah, youth! Boss was a real character but he taught me a lot about how to paint and how to be a good worker that I’ve used ever since.

Home made & fenders are off a orchard special fer sure.

The commando 8 is alive and done it bought some memories back driving it around today

Looking real good Paul. My old 502 would start right up on the first pull if it did not sit for more then one week.

Stainless steel hood mounting hardware ready to be installed. Hood ready to be installed. Tractor washed up and ready for the hood to be installed. Hood installed.

Hoisted the 48"SD up to see if I could get the broken bolt out of the spindle. I got lucky. A few taps with a punch and it spun right out. Threw a patch on the left rear corner. Sharpened the blades. Finish scraping, wire brushing and oil down for the winter.

Hauling some firewood out of the woods this weekend with the GT-1848. Major deck maintenance going on recently: I had the baffle come loose on one of the 48" SD's a few weeks ago and it got a bit mangled. Deck and spindles have significant rot so I'm probably going to scrap that one. Oh, and the 312-A is back there getting a cleanup and repaint of the rear, tins, and wheels. Not pulling it all apart to repaint everything. It's got fairly new rear tires so I got a matching pair of new ones for the front. Been sitting on a set of nice hubcaps and black belt cover - those will go on here when done. New decals from @Vinylguy - will post pictures when those go on.

Yes Old ensolite sleeping pad over pvc board with vinyl top... used for numerous applications... including another model WH that I'm working on. Here's the first one... 1 and 3 year old testing engineers approved...

Today's progress: C clips for the front tachomatic latch bar thingy (there were none...) then converted it to a front 2" hitch. Can be easily converted back for mowing - remove 4 bolts and put knob back on... can use for trailer maneuvering, weight, winch for plow etc... older I get more I like looking straight ahead at what I'm hitched to...

Hood masked for black grill paint. Hood semi-gloss black grill paint applied.

Sounds like a great day Terry. I love it when I can actually spend a whole day without interuptions on tractor tinkerin. Mike.........