Freak tractor accident

This afternoon I started to drag a harrow across the pastures.  I finished doing the NE pasture and began to work on the north pasture east end where I plan to set up temporary corral panels as a large corral to keep the cattle until the grass grows out.

The harrow is five sections and I pull them using a long metal cable. I used this setup with my tractor last year around all the pasture with no problems.  Today somehow the cable got wrapped around the left side tractor axle.  Then the left rear tractor tire ran over the cable on another turn.  With no slack left the cable wrapped around the tractor tire itself and pulled up the harrows to the tire.  I turned around at the sound of the commotion and saw the harrows coming up in the air towards the tractor.  I immediately stopped. By then the left front harrow had been pulled up under the tractor's tire fender and against the left rear tire.  One of the harrow's spikes went through the tire and I heard air escaping.

I had to remove the railroad tie I had placed on the front two harrow sections for weight, then unchain the other harrow sections from the one section in the tire.  Then I had to untie the cable from the harrow section and then unwrap the cable from the tire.  My neighbor Curtis helped me remove the harrow section from the tire.  I was able to drive the tractor to the backyard before all the air escaped from the tire.

Monday I'll have to get the tire fixed.  That'll be a big job.   In the meantime I put the five harrow sections back together and used my pickup to drag the harrow around the area I plan to setup my temporary corral panels tomorrow.

I had partially disassembled the harrow sections when I took this photo.