{"id":455,"date":"2007-10-25T22:14:31","date_gmt":"2007-10-26T02:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/happiness-is-a-"},"modified":"2007-10-25T22:14:31","modified_gmt":"2007-10-26T02:14:31","slug":"happiness-is-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/?p=455","title":{"rendered":"Happiness is a plan that finally comes together"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Newtractortrailer\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This picture was taken this morning. I am driving this tractor around in icy rain, soaked to the skin, and I am ecstatic! I finally have a workable system for hauling heavy loads of material over uneven terrain without risk of personal injury.<\/p>\n

I have been working on acquiring a miniature tractor \/ dump cart combination for hauling firewood for almost a year and this was what I had envisioned. <\/p>\n

Once I really set my mind to it, everything started happening at once. I licensed my book, Danger Quicksand – Have A Nice Day, to a Russian publisher and the licensing fee gave me the chance to purchase what I needed. <\/p>\n

I didn’t have time to search for what I needed, so I enlisted neighbor Tom King, bargain hunter extraordinaire, to help me. After a short search, he found me this stellar bargain at Sears.<\/p>\n

I am driving a new, "discontinued model" Craftsman lawn mower with a 18 HP engine and a sturdy dump cart from Lowes. The whole package came in at around $1000 and it allows me to haul half-ton loads of firewood logs around our property.<\/p>\n

Once I had a working tractor and a heavy duty dump cart, a lot of stalled projects started moving again. <\/p>\n

I had an arborist take down a tree this morning and in the image above I am hauling cartloads of logs around to the log splitter where they will become firewood this weekend. I was able to remove most of the tree trunk sections in less than an hour. The tree people used the chipper to dispose of the branches and leaves.<\/p>\n

The high sided dump cart will carry 1000 pounds which is adequate for hauling small loads of topsoil, mulch and gravel around the property. This tractor\/cart combination speeds up landscaping chores immensely and lets me clean up odd piles of building materials that I have been avoiding for many months.<\/p>\n

I do not have a lawn so the mower deck will soon be dropped and stored somewhere which will give the tractor a much higher ground clearance and will make it more useful in the woods.<\/p>\n

My next project is to find out if there is some kind of snow blower attachment that I can bolt onto this tractor for use in clearing the driveway this winter. I don’t think there is enough power to push a plow, but a self-powered snow blower attachment might come in handy, if such exists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This picture was taken this morning. I am driving this tractor around in icy rain, soaked to the skin, and I am ecstatic! I finally have a workable system for hauling heavy loads of material over uneven terrain without risk … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1778],"tags":[1220,1219,1248],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3R4iK-7l","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}