He tossed me the keys to the Excavator!! Let's learn how it works!

we've been working over here and we're not quite done yet here comes done the rot guy and Don has backed himself into a predicament hey folks this is Josh Tony rich farmer welcome back to the farm I have an awesome special treat for you today and an awesome special treat for me today so I've had an excavator and a loader down here working on the farm for probably five days now and guess what he tossed me the keys to this for the day so I've got this excavator and I have this huge mess this is a hedgerow right here we call it a hedgerow it's just a row of trees and rocks gigantic rocks I've already been in here working a little bit I didn't want to embarrass myself too much but come along today as I work on the learning curve of trying to operate this gigantic machine it's going to be fun it's going to be awesome and we're going to turn this area of scrubby ol mess into something pretty alright [Music] new h-bomb so before we get talking about the equipment because we're going to get in there we're gonna have some fun and got a GoPro we're gonna talk through all that stuff these are what we're pulling out so rocks this size which is about 10 times as big as my head to rocks this size it's a Stoney Ridge farm because their rocks as big as cars in here man there are huge huge huge rocks and this is what I've done so far and this is probably three hours worth of work we plucked all this out I'll show you the other side of that big oak tree right there that's the finished product so here's what before looks like and we'll throw the drone up too but here's what before looks like all this mess this is what it looks like after it looks very very nice now it's not totally finished still got to get in here with the loader a little bit straighten out this mess but he's already back drugged this this may be the permanent spot where we put our home that's one of two places on the farm that we're considering putting our home very very pretty and the view is awesome so we have a mountain view there's some mountains Bart back there that's bull mountain that you can barely see way off in the distance but off camera you can really see it in the sunsets right over there beautiful our tobacco barns right down here and our tractor sheds right here my wife is a little bit reluctant to build here because it's pretty much the only place on the farm where we could see more houses so I don't know you guys tell me we've got 200 acres ish and they're probably too good building sites one is going to require more infrastructure in other words we're gonna have to drill another well and put in another septic if we build here it's gonna save us that ten thousand dollars of drilling another well and my thought process is here we have kids what a fun law and what a beautiful lawn a great garden spot down here the corn garden is down here and what a beautiful front lawn this would make can you imagine when I'm 80 years old having a row of oak trees and a driveway right down the middle through there how beautiful would that be let's go check out the equipment that's the fun part I don't know the horsepower but it's an SK 210 it is a co Bell Co Co Bell co-brand machine it's nice it's a nice pretty insulated cab with air-conditioner and a radio I like to kind of hear what I'm doing I'm gonna wear my headphones right here so I can take phone calls if I need to while I'm working it has I believe a four or five foot bucket that's a huge bucket this is a monster of a machine now what we're gonna do here is we're gonna take out some of these trees that are just like that like that and try and leave some of the pretty tall straight ones so without further ado guys I've only had about three hours on this machine so it's about like handing a fine tip pin to a kid that's only had a crayon in other words it's a huge difference in running that John Deere tractor to running this but I'm sure we can pick it up by the time we get done we might be moderately proficient enough to keep up with the 953 and I can pull stumps and he can push them in a pile awesome let's get busy whoo so the most appropriate thing for me to do is show you how all the controls work in this machine you got a step right here step here and then step up in the cab and I've got the cab open so we'll grab this handle right here and we'll step up into the cab all right you have a seat here with armrests the armrest fold down underneath there is the radio so we fold our arm rest down and there's an armrest over here on the other side now if I can find it where'd you go but there it is it flipped backwards what we've got going here is a start switch so we'll turn the key on which initiates the computer right here right there is a computer you can see it lights up it has a backup camera system in there then we'll turn the key on listen to how quiet this thing is the air conditioning is on right now what you really don't need so we're gonna turn it off okay crank it up listen how quiet just purr in that client that's really cool so we'll let it warm up to good operating temperature but while it's warming up we'll talk about all the controls and how all the controls work and then we'll get you a demonstration outside too so I'm going to take this camera out there and we're going to go on GoPro okay so we're going to get the full on crash course here the machine is started we have a red-handled lever here we're going to push this red handle lever down that says beep beep we're good to go we buckle our seatbelts in crease now we have two joysticks in the operator station here and these two joysticks or what moves it forward and backward soon as you pull this it starts beeping you'll hear a beep okay so we'll pull this one up and that lifts the arm up off the ground okay now we can go left right up and down so up and down very cool left and right very big swings on this thing very very sensitive now we have bucket control so the scooper on the bucket if I move it to the left let's bring it up a little bit I move to the right it pulls the bucket down and if I move it okay if I moved to the left it scoops the bucket up also if I pull to me it brings the elbow in and if I push away it brings the elbow out so you have to find that fun little spot that makes it sweet so that you can dig a straight and even hole that's what the whole goal is is to find the sweet spot and that's what the learning curve is here so that's what we're going to do we're gonna swing around here and we're gonna get busy we're probably going to knock some trees down here just first thing we're going to try and do is get our first stump out of the day now again I only have about three hours on this machine I am totally learning totally a newbie hopefully by the end of the day I won't be a total newbie and I'll know a little bit about what I'm doing [Applause] [Music] so folks what you're seeing here is the delicate balance that I have to find here because I want to keep this tree this is a hickory tree and it's gonna make a beautiful beautiful tree so I have to barely stick the forks or the times and the ground here on the bucket and just skim this area taking out all the rocks that are in the area and then we'll come back in and dress it up with the loader so that's what's going on here you see how many rocks this is why we call it the Stoney Ridge farm so we're going to keep this tree here let's see that is a hickory tree and there's also a red oak back in here that we may be able to keep we've got to bring the ground level here down just a little bit to make it even with the pasture now there's a hump and this is where people have piled rocks on this farm for hundreds of years evidently pretty much since the settlers days and this is an old tobacco farm so that's what's going on this may give you a little better perspective of the hump that we're working with here so there's a big pretty rolling field here which he used to be a nasty mess and we cleaned it up there's a big pretty hump right here and then there's a big beautiful field right here that used to be a nasty mess when we first bought this farm and we cleaned it up so this is just part of it if we can build our home here we'll have a beautiful beautiful view so that's what's going on when I'm digging in a barely skimming the ground you'll get some various camera angles while we're working here but you can see we've got a hole right here that needs to be filled in we've got dirt here but not a lot of dirt so we've got to roll this stuff around stir it around get the rocks out let the dirt settle and then come back dress up and fill in all these holes it is a fine art so I'll work myself all the way around this side and then I'll come back and work my way all the way around this side blunt stuff guys I want to give you some words of encouragement if your kids are video game kids and you think they're not gonna amount to nothing cuz you keep playing those games that thing is like playing a video game it's a lot more dangerous than a video game but it sure is fun and all you're doing is moving joysticks and hitting buttons it's just like a video game so there are some words of encouragement you could future heavy equipment operator it's very very similar to flying the flight simulator for the f-16 I got a chance to fly that when I was in the Air Force so similar very very minor changes with the joystick awesome alright guys so we've been working over here and we're not quite done yet here comes done the rock guy and donk has backed himself into a predicament so what happened Don thought he was on this side of the tree he's mad at me he thought he was on this side of the tree but he needed to be over like two feet so we're gonna have to push the trailer because he's on clover all this whole field is clover for the honeybees so he's knowing clover and it's just slick as snot and it's a two-wheel drive truck so it's going just spinning and this trailer is loaded down with rock so it's got a heavy heavy load on so he's lining up and I'll let me drive I'll Drive it so I'm gonna drive we're gonna push this thing out here hang on guys we'll get you a shot get you the show [Applause] folks two-wheel drives and clover just don't mix it gets really really slick whoa [Music] not make it out of the field Don's truck got stuck right there he wants to listen eesti shut it down his truck got stuck right there so I backed back up and hit it again took one more run and it got stuck again this clover gets slick as snot the dew has settled and we had to push dawn out twice so it's a little rough on the grass here it's a little rough on the hauling all that weight in and out of here it's a little hard on my grass a little concerned about that but I guess it would come back mm-hmm we got to get busy we got just a few more maybe 1/2 hour left of daylight couple more trees to take down and we'll be done for today we'll show you the results [Music] Pierce we had some ways close to me stone Tyrion that's your army reserve right there guys Bobcat 773 with the army reserve guy him there