Hosed again...

Was hoping to post something positive this week, after all the bum stuff on the road, but then one of the hydraulic hoses blew out on the backhoe. Installed the hoe a lot later this year due to the extremely warm Oct, so when we finally got to finishing the dirt work, the ground had started to freeze hard. Was almost done filling the dog yard holes when I heard an odd sound from the hydraulics, then noticed something out of the corner of my eye and realized there was a stream of hydraulic fluid shooting off to one side of the tractor. A hydraulic line had sprung a leak, so shut her down real quick. Unplugged the backhoe hydraulics and then was able to drive the tractor back to the spot where the backhoe's parked. Got it unattached with limited loss of of fluid and then checked it out.

Looks like a kink in the hose where it blew out (arrow). Not sure how that happened, though that hose was originally installed a little too long, so maybe it just kinked over time.

The backhoe work's over for this year, so installed the hydraulic splitter to start splitting the wood that's already bucked up.

 Stealth cat, in the background, wanders about while keeping an eye on things.