Yesterday I went up to remove the 850 gal tank out and place a newer 1000 gal tank the new lease owner will use. My 850 was there, in a very low area of the woods, a bog. I hauled my 4 ton excavator up to do the move, but then the new lease owner took his very large 4×4 tractor to do it. As a result, all I did with my excavator is move several rocks, some large (likely about a ton on the biggest one), the rest much smaller. Then I drove the excavator into the very wet low ground where the tank sat. I lifted each end to free it from the mud after pushing over 2 very dead ash trees. Since I had built a sled out of pressure treated 4×4’s with 2 4×6’s as skiis, to support the tank in the bog, it came out much easier than I had envisioned. Besides, after I loosened the skid’s grip in the mud, the new lease owner used a heavy nylon strap to lift one end and pull it up out of the bog. He then dragged it out of the way while I and my little excavator removed 3 or 4 large boulders from one side of where the new larger tank was going and I somewhat leveled the site. Then he lifted the new tank on the forks on the front of his tractor and placed it on some pressure treated 2×12’s that he had set in place to support the tank. First 2 of the 12′ planks went down crosswise under where the legs were going to be and then another 2 12′ planks sat on those, facing lengthwise to the tank and the 4 tank legs were directly on top of where the planks crossed each other.
Then the new lease owner hooked a chain onto the front of the skid on my tank that was removed and pulled it out of the woods. Once out, he unhooked the tow chain and lifted that tank and carried it out thru the open fields and set it on my brother in law’s trailer behind his truck to haul back. I had my heavy trailer on my truck to load my excavator on to haul back and we proceeded back to the sugarhouse (about 9 miles).
With all that help from the new lease owner and his large tractor (Case 85 something) with front tires almost as wide as the rear tires on my 36 HP tractor, what I had thought would be a very long day, ended up 2 or 3 hours shorter than expected, and that was alright by me.