My daughter Reagan has always wanted to brush hog and in today's video she'll get that opportunity. I wanted her to learn in a fairly safe environment, in the fall, after the leaves were off the plants, on a very moderate slope, so I left a couple of acres for her to knock down over Thanksgiving break from college. If you have a family member or friend who wants to learn to bush hog, show them this video.
Reagan has spent a little bit of seat time on my tractor. She's moved round bales, hauled manure in the loader bucket and drug a rock rake around trying to clean up brush. Running a bush hog, though, is a whole lot more pressure than any of those jobs. There's a lot of spinning items, noise, and the possibility of throwing objects out. Don't ever be too close to someone running a brush hog.
I showed Reagan the basics. First, you always have your seat belt on when you bush hog. ALWAYS!!! If you happened to hit a rock that bounced around and hit you in the head and knocked you out, and you fell off the tractor, that could end badly. Hopefully the seat safety switch would kill the tractor, but I wouldn't depend on it. With your seat belt on and the roll bar up, you have a near 100% chance of surviving a rollover. It goes down drastically without the seat belt. WEAR THE SEAT BELT!!!
Next, when you're ready to go to work, have your cutter level, and set at the right height. If you're grinding up rocks, it is too low. 4-5" will give a nice cut and prevent contact with rocks. Before engaging the PTO, run your engine up to about 1200 RPM and then gradually move your lever forward. My PTO engages when the lever is about halfway forward. You can feel the blades start to move causing the tractor to vibrate. Once the blades are moving, run your tractor up to PTO rated engine speed (which is different for every model) if you're cutting tall, lush material, or woody plants near the capacity of your cutter. If you're cutting light stuff like Reagan was you can throttle down a little. She ran at 2200 RPM and everything worked just fine.
If you're on slopes, you want to be in four wheel drive, leave it in 2wd for gradual slopes or level ground because that'll make it easier to turn, and know where the emergency shut off is. On this tractor if you turn the key, everything stops, on some tractors there's a pull switch to kill it. Know what to do if you have an emergency and want everything to stop.
Finally, mow in a low gear when starting. I mow in a low gear almost all the time, my ground is too rough to stay in the tractor seat in high gear. Then all you have to do is drive.
Reagan finished the area I saved for her in about two hours and seemed to have a moderate amount of fun getting the job done. There is something therapeutic about slicking down a pasture. It's probably the fresh air and sunshine coupled with the feeling of accomplishment.
Thanks to Reagan our brush hogging is done and I got a nap on an unseasonably warm day in November. Life is good. Happy Thanksgiving!
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25 ноя 2021
