Ryan McFarland

I know a few people that have gone to a specific school to learn to operate heavy equipment.  Recently Rachel Cheney returned from a school and i remember Ryan Welde telling me a few stories about his experience.  There really is something incredible about moving a lot of earth.  I first learned to use a tiny excavator - this one.  It is worth mentioning that it was turned off before that Viking took it over.  After a while i then learned to use a rubber tire backhoe.  Both pieces of equipment i operated to help with trail building efforts on the Hungry Point Trail.  It would have been back breaking work to load wheelbarrows by hand.

Two years ago i ran my first bulldozer to work on improvements at the baseball fields.   Many of the improvements that i have seen take place at the pool, parks, and trails is only possible with heavy equipment.  In some ways it is nice to think of an almost care-free work environment with a heated cab just moving dirt around like kids and Tonka trucks.  But i have seen the other side - messing with a track in the pouring rain or bogging down equipment in mud.  I honestly respect the guys that run heavy equipment because so many of my work projects wouldn’t get done without them.

I wish we had a backhoe at home.  With the snow piling up there is some money to be made helping keep driveways cleared.  How do i know?  I finally got the bill from last winter!