Oh, good, I am not the only one who uses a heavy equipment bucket as a hammer.
You ever break down a tire with a loader bucket? We had a couple of round pieces of heavy, heavy steel pipe bigger then the metal rim - metal sewer pipe if I remember right - flop the wheel down, put the steel over the tire, press with the bucket, flip, repeat. Much easier then cussing at the tire machine when we ripped it out of the concrete yet again trying to break a bead on an old rusted up tire. Just needed the tire machine to take the tire off the wheel - although a sawsall works well too.
I know our woodshed is made of surplus telephone poles. We just used the bottom 10 or so feet of them, so they are black all the way up from the creosote. Not buried NEAR as deep as they stick a free standing pole down either.
I remember the 2 extra poles made a great swing set. We dug 2 down about 3-4 feet. Dad chopped the tops as tall as the extension ladder would reach, somehow levered a cross piece from one of the tops of the other poles up that he had notched with the chainsaw, and spiked them down.
When we pulled the polls out with the loader on the tractor, 15 - 20 years later, the telephone poles hadn't rotted at all. made a really nice swing set, 20 foot ropes are MUCH nicer then this little 4 foot chains that kids are forced to deal with these days. No wonder they won't go outside to play.
The tops of the poles got cut down to 1 foot sections and split in half. We buried these 4 inches down to make a little garden fence around the house. We alternated split side in, split side out. They lasted maybe 5 years before they where all rotten.
So, what have we learned here, ATVs make great step ladders, and loader buckets make great hammers and pry-bars. Check.
