unsticking the tractor's mower bed

back in November, GB wrote about his mower bed getting stuck in the mud. We've had soooo much rain since then, that attempting to get it out of the mud seemed futile.

Finally we got in a dry spell (a drought of sorts). GB was ready to unstick the mower and I reluctantly came along to help. Personally, I don't feel like unticking farm implements from mud is my forte, but I wanted to help, and the grass was getting pretty out of control all over.

We drove down to the lower part of the property where the mower bed sat.

First we tried using the tractor's bucket to lift the mower a bit out of the mud. GB is here using tow straps to attach the 2 things.somehow I didn't feel like either machine or implement was designed for this. There were no handles for attaching things!

After several attempts, the tractor DID lift the mower enough for us to get some boards under the mower and make it more even (it was leaning heavily down into the mud on one side)

Here it is all lifted up. Now all we had to do was attach the mower correctly (to the back of the tractor) and drive forward.

SUCCESS!

As you can imagine, we were THRILLED! It only took us about an hour or so, so not TOO bad!