December 17, 2005 - Sat. = Drainage problems
Well its saturday, and everything is covered in mud. The ground around the house is really dug up from construction, and we really haven't worked on getting our property to drain properly, so right now the water has no where to go. And trust me, there has been a lot of water. When the water mixes with the red clay around the house, the whole area turns into muck. Kevin's dad likens this muck to grease. Its thick, wet slippery, and will pull your boots off. Its almost impossible to work outside like this.
The mud is also very good for getting vehicles stuck. Namely, the dump trailer. I wish I had pictures to show (its pretty funny actually), but at one point we very nearly had the dump trailer, the 4x4 F250, AND the tractor all stuck at once. We spent most of this morning getting everything un-stuck, and then putting down more gravel and digging more ditches so that the water would have somewhere to go besides collecting right around the house. The only progress we actually made on the house was getting the ridgecap on the roof.
As a side note, I would like to complain about Ford being cheap. Kevin's dad has this really nice F250 4x4. It has a "four wheel drive low" setting. This truck should not get stuck in the mud. Especially at our house, the mud is not really that bad. (The mini baja has raced in far worse).The problem, is that the truck seems to have a open differential in the front/back/center. Maybe its limited slip in the back, but what gives? What good does 4x4 low do you if at least the rear doesn't have a locking diff? No good, is the answer. You can gear it as low as you want, and without a locking diff, the wheel in the back with traction just sits there while the opposite wheels spins. I know it would help if there were better tires on the thing, come on, it was barely able to get itself out of the mud yesterday, much less the trailer. (once again, the kubota came to the rescue).
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