It started out going well.

The Forest Mulcher (Caterpiller Skid Steer with a mulcher device on the front) was easily cutting through the forest, demolishing unwanted brush, unwanted saplings, and the occasional tree that was sitting where my shed was supposed to be.

He had opened up the small clearing that I needed for a staging area and shed, the better to follow my Forest Management Plan. He had been working that morning for about an hour when he pulled up next to me and shut off the engine. He climbed out of the cab, closing the door behind him.

He needed to discuss a couple of tree issues, and once this was resolved, he climbed back up on the Skid Steer and twisted the handle of the cab door.

It wouldn’t open.

“How can you be locked out?”

“I must have left my keys inside, and it locked behind me.”

“Do you have a spare key?”

“At home”

Home was an hour away.

We investigated whether the cab could be opened in any other way, for example, through the emergency escape hatch (not without breaking it), or by taking the hinges off the door (might damage it). In the end, we agreed that he’d just go home and get his keys, to return later in the afternoon. Not a huge problem…just an annoying delay. Later, things got worse.

When he returned in the afternoon, he had his extra key. He fired up the Forest Mulcher and took off towards the woods, to work on developing the access trails I wanted. Everything went well for a while, and then my cell phone rang. He had run out of diesel fuel, deep in the woods. And without power, he couldn’t open his access door, blocked as it was by the mulcher device.

Strictly speaking, he wasn’t really out of fuel, but he had been low on fuel. Working on a downhill slope, the fuel wasn’t able to slosh around and was trapped at one end (the downhill end) of the fuel tank. The engine had started to stall, and by the time he was able to figure out the problem, he was dead in the water (or dead in the forest). The solution was more diesel fuel, but he couldn’t get out of the cab due to the interlock that prohibited opening the door if the mulcher was raised.

Fortunately, his son-in-law was able to retrieve some 5-gallon jugs of diesel and bring them to the woods. We loaded them in the back of the Gator and drove down the recently opened forest paths until we could find him. Refueled, the problem was solved, but he was trapped in his cab, motionless in the forest for about an hour.

I learned a few things from this:

• Keep your keys with you
• Keep your tanks relatively full
• The Gator proved useful as a rescue refueling vehicle.
• Diesel fuel jugs are yellow, gasoline jugs are red, and water jugs are green or blue.