The tractor fuel was getting low, so I drove to the Chalmers fuel station nearby and got myself 20 litres of diesel.²⁾I had already put conditioner into the jerry can some time back in anticipation of this.

Then I had to set up the tractor for the job. This involved

• dropping the rear-mount tiller in the back of our yard near the tree line³⁾There is no need for it to live in the shed, where it would just take up a lot of space.
• removing the three point hitch
• mounting the backhoe,⁴⁾This was quite painless for a change. I keep it on a dolly I made for the purpose, and was able to wheel it into place, use the struts to raise it just a fraction, slide it in, line up the pin holes, and mount the pins. It took maybe 20 minutes, possibly less. and
• removing the mower deck.⁵⁾I ought to have done this before removing the backhoe to mount the tiller in the first place, but forgot!

Then I started filling the trench. It sounds easy enough, but the reach with the front-end loader is limited, and the dirt pile from the trench was on the far side in most cases.⁶⁾Going to the other side of the trench was mostly awkward because of various obstacles on that side. I didn’t want the front wheels of the tractor to get too near the trench lest there be a cave-in and I end up stuck. I could have turned about and used the backhoe, but that involves a lot of mounting a dismounting every few minutes to move the tractor to the next segment of the trench.

I used a shovel to even it out a little, and got probably 75% of it done before I felt that I should likely give it a rest and continue another day. No point in getting hurt.