After a while it just gets too weird.

I still owe M a lot of dirt-moving on his Dome, and it's past time to get back to it. But that slope was scaring the life out of me. It wasn't so much the ascent, because Gulchendiggensmoothen has no trouble climbing any grade with a bucket of dirt to weigh down the front. No, the problem was backing down the grade with the bucket empty, because then that big, too-heavy backhoe causes him to do the Twist like there's a Chubby Checker record playing somewhere.

I spent a couple of sessions doing exciting things with the tractor and my heartrate and not making much progress toward actually moving dirt. Finally it occurred to me: You've got a grade that's too steep, and you've come to this conclusion while in the saddle of a powerful machine designed to move dirt. Y'know what, Joel? Why the hell don't you spend a morning reducing the grade? Don't you think that might help?

Well, maybe it would at that. Of course it took me three hours to do what S the Road Guy could have accomplished in fifteen minutes, but that's the difference between us. I may not have experience, but I've got time.