Stuck Pickup

Bakkie (local term for a pickup) stuck solidly in the mudbath that was once a lawn. No tractor handy to pull it out. No team of oxen. No bunch of strong friends to help push. Just the two of us. How to get it out of the mud?

Here's how.

You need your vehicle's jack (in our case it needs 2) and a couple of longish planks that you don't value. I needed another short plank to place beneath the jack to prevent it sinking into the swamp.

Jack up one side of the vehicle, and slide a plank under the drive wheel on that side. Jack up the other side and slide the second plank under the other drive wheel. Drive off. Voila.

The main problem was a small depression in the pathway that naturally accumulates a small pond in heavy rains. The front wheel of the bakkie evidently felt comfortable in a state of depression, and stuck there, sulking. The grass beneath the back (drive) wheels was so sodden, muddy and slippery that they couldn't gain the traction to pull it out, hence the palaver to get it moving again.

I will confess that lately I've begun thinking that perhaps it is time to get rid of the bakkie. The body is rusted to tatters, and it will never pass a roadworthy check again, but the engine and mechanics are still sound as anything. The engine is an older-generation diesel -- the sort that will burn any fuel you can manage to squeeze through the injectors, so it has a mechanical resilience that modern pickups lack. At a push I could grow hemp or sunflowers for fuel.

Then, too I would want to replace it with another means for gathering horseshit and other compostables. Perhaps a small tractor and trailer?

Still, I will admit that there's a small possibility that my rationalisations for hanging onto the dodgy and aged bakkie amount to nothing more than a sentimental attachment... Bakkie was my first concrete step towards a path of self-sufficiency.

So: anybody want to acquire a 1986 2.2litre Diesel bakkie in good mechanical order, but falling to bits? Make me an offer I can't refuse.

Oh, and it's raining again... :D