My latest home project

(Published 8/11/2005) Over the last couple of months I had three truck loads of crushed concrete brought in for the driveway down to my pole barn. I took a day off work and rented a Bobcat from the Kubota place in Grand Rapids. I got dad to come over to operate the thing because he'd driven them when he worked on the farm. The thing won't run unless you first close the cage and buckle your seat belt. It was kind of warm that particular day and the guy said that once you had the thing started you could open up the cage, but we couldn't get it open. After awhile dad was getting hot and needed to open the cage up. Unfortunately, even after shutting the thing off neither of us could open the cage. I thought for awhile that I was going to have to call the cops and have them bring the jaws of life can opener to get dad out of there. I left dad in the Bobcat and went back up to the house to call the rental place to see if there was a trick to getting the cage open. They told me that they'd never had that problem before. By the time I got back down to the barn dad had finally gotten the door open.