Meet Roberta

Roberta is an old, worn out, slowly breaking down bobcat. She is The Hubby’s pride & joy.

Roberta came into our life through the wonderful world of EBay when we first embarked on this farming adventure. ‘Every farm needs a bobcat, Hun” said The Hubby.  Sure it does... at the time I thought we could probably better spend the money to say, I don’t know, make the house a tad more liveable?

 Any way Roberta has actually turned out to be a very useful little piece of equipment. Hubby is becoming quite skilled at working her and we have hit a point where she is essential to all the outdoor renovations we have on the go. So what happens when you decide you absolutely can’t live without something?

This happens:

Oops...

Luckily it was The husband who got into this sticky situation and not me. It turns out that trying to get a 2.5 tonne machine out of a 6’x4’ sinking pit of doom is no easy feat, the more you try and get out of it, the worse it gets!

Plan A – Tractor and winch, Brilliant! – except the tractor could only get so close without becoming bogged as well and when we did manage to connect it?

The winch snapped. 

Plan B – Logs and lots of them!

So we managed to lift the bobcats bucket up and insert some logs / tree trunks under it, now we can push the bucket down which should in turn lift up the back so we can try to put some logs under the back wheels to get grip. This is going swimmingly, The Hubby (with the stronger arms) shoving logs under, me sitting at the controls, progress, until...

Bang! The log under the bucket snaps and Roberta lurches forwards, back wheels way up in the air and tipping head over heels fast, I try and move the bucket up to counter the weight but the control pedals are full of mud and won’t budge.

Note: I have no photos of this bit due to the fact that I was inside the death machine screaming like a girl to busy trying to stop her from rolling forwards into the 4 foot deep mud hole where I would be destined to drown slowly in the sludge.

Thankfully I must have had a guardian angel looking out for me that day because as Roberta throws herself face first into the mud hole gravity kicked in and I slipped downwards (I was now standing upright) and fell onto one of the bucket-operating-pedals the force of my weight was enough to make the pedal move and by sheer luck it was the right pedal. Bang!! Roberta throws herself backwards sinks slightly and settles in a lovely upright position. You have never seen anyone exit a vehicle so fast!

Plan C – Wait for wonderful neighbour with heavy duty winch to come to the rescue upon his return from holiday the next day.

It was a very depressed looking hubby who went to bed that night praying his baby wouldn’t be swallowed into the mud pit forever while he slept. I awoke the next morning to a rather relieved and excited “It didn’t roll over night! It’s still upright!”

After making The Husband promise several times he wouldn’t go near Roberta until either wonderful neighbour or myself had returned, I headed off to work knowing in my heart he wouldn’t listen anyway and hoping that he didn’t roll her forwards and drown in the sludge while I was gone. I return home to a rather shiny looking Roberta sitting on the driveway with a few new dents and scratches. He got her out. By himself. Did he nearly die in the process? I don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me, but I think that from now on he is going to be a little more careful when he is driving close to the dam...