Right on, Wes. Oneof my favorites too. I haven't known the title for about 30 years, but I recognize the cover. (Visual thinker)
I also had a favorite book about an old steam shovel that digs a foundation hole so deep It can't get out so they use the boiler in the steam shovel to heat the building.
Ah, just looked on the left pane on the amazon page and yep, there that one is too. "Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel."
http://www.amazon.com/Mike-Mulligan...0395169615/ref=pd_sim_b_1/104-4653414-7415147
Those two books might be the first books I checked out from the school library.
Dozer Nostalgia:
The family kinda has a "K.T.", only ours says "CAT Model 22." She's a 1934ish crank start crawler with a homemade blade (cut from a boiler tank!) She stays out at Leon's old Cherry farm. Leon uses her to plow snow in the winter. "I can't believe it, she fires right up on the second crank even in the winter!" (Leon loves that old crawler) Other good stories around that crawler include leaving it parked smack dab in the middle of M-22 highway. (Leon's orchard is across the highway from the barn and the crawler ran out of gas crossing the road.) Pulling a semi out of the sand. (Ever see a dozer fling sand from spinning tracks?) "Don't stall the engine on a crank start dozer with the blade up against the tree you are pushing over." (You have to crawl UNDER the tractor and pull the crank from underneath! I think I'll rename that story, "Ways farm kids can die.")
