Being an only child of two working parents and living outside of town definitely had its disadvantages, but it also had its advantages such as learning how to do things for yourself using whatever resources were available at the time which lead to good life-skills. That came in handy today. While mowing the roll bar caught a guy wire on my 45 foot irrigation pipe mast holding up the far end of my inverted L antenna. I did this once before and just slightly bent the mast and I was able to reinforce it with a piece of angle iron. Not today however. It broke the pipe about three quarters of the way around right at the top most mounting hole meaning the only thing holding it was shear luck. I brought Johnnie over, that is my name for my recently purchased John Deere 1025R tractor with mower and loader, and managed to use ratcheting straps to bind it to the bucket. I then knocked out the bolts holding it to the base and released one set of guy wires and lower the loader bucket to set it down on the ground. It was pretty sketchy going but all worked out in the end. I had to baby the hydraulics and not make any sudden moves or I could have snapped the mast easily. I wanted to get it down before any wind picked up as it would have surely fallen with any amount of wind at all. Now I just need to trim the bottom end and drill it and mount it again. I think I may use Johnnie to put it up again as it went better than I thought taking it down. It sure beats raising it by hand. That is a LOT of leverage and weight to deal with plus it jiggles like a bowl of jello making it hard to handle once the arms get shaking.
Waiting for a sneeze to take it down.
Success!. It is down in one piece.
Finally down. You can see the piece that broke off the very bottom.
Binder straps around the bucket. It broke off right at the top bolt hole leaving no support just luck holding it!
Waiting for a sneeze to take it down.
Success!. It is down in one piece.
Finally down. You can see the piece that broke off the very bottom.
Binder straps around the bucket. It broke off right at the top bolt hole leaving no support just luck holding it!
Last edited: