Tuesday, June 4, 2013

A Glimpse Into My World

Saturday was one of those days where even the simple tasks are like trying to climb Mt Everest.

I have sold my little trailer and will be delivering it on the 8th.  That meant that I had to get busy getting the bigger trailer ready to use. I wanted to get an early start so we hit the ground running at about 6:30 am.  While I was cleaning pens, spraying fly spray, and feeding I asked TC to hook a truck up to the new trailer, so he hooked up the brand new truck.  Then he said to me "Be careful pulling out of the pasture, if you dip down in a hole you will crunch the bed....again."

(Side note: When we brought the trailer home it was on this same truck.  The trailer is longer than anything I have pulled before. He just put a new gate into the pasture, and it is a tight squeeze.  I asked him to pull it in through the new gate the first time so we can see what it is going to take to navigate it, and his response was, "No you have to learn to do it."  3 minutes later cue "Crunch" as the trailer caught the corner of the bed. This was as we were learning that you can only come in from the south. I yelled, "This is your fault dammit!"  That was the second time I crunched it, the first time was a whole different story, it was totally my fault the first time.)

Anyway, so he told me to be careful, and I asked him to pull it out of the pasture, and once again he told me I needed to do it.

Now keep in mind that you can raise the hitch so that it isn't so close to the bed, but it puts more weight on the rear axle and causes the trailer to bounce when you are pulling it.

So he lowered it.

Apparently it was more important to have a trailer that didn't bounce than to have plenty  of clearance over the truck bed....of a new truck...that the trailer already hit once...that I was driving.

The gate was up hill from the trailer. I pulled up the hill and the minute the truck leveled out...yup you guessed it...crunch!  Of course it was the opposite side, too.  On the bright side, both rear corners of the pick up match now.

Insert an entire string of expletives as I backed back down the hill, stomped inside and said, "Never ever ever again am I pulling that trailer in or out of that pasture!"

He had the nerve to get mad at me!  Hey! It wasn't my fault!  You remove all clearance, put me in a no win situation and then get mad when  things get broke?  Not cool mister!

He unhooked the new truck, went and grabbed the old flat bed, and hooked her up. She pulled out beautifully and we looked at each other and at the same time said, "Why didn't we think of this before?"

So then we had to fix the rear doors on the trailer so they would shut better.  Bolts were stripped, hinges were bent, and we managed to break off the little tabby doo-hicky piece that holds the handle that latches the door. Now our handle won't stay on and the door is as loose as it ever was.

But no biggie right? TC has a trucking company. To own a trucking company and have any kind of success you also have to have a shop.  You know, a shop with every super cool tool imaginable.  He has welders, presses, compressor, power tools, jacks of every size imaginable, and one wall lined with tool boxes. Electric grinders, air grinders, portable grinders, drills, taps, dies. Not to mention a side room of nothing but every piece of spare hardware known to man.  You name it, he pretty much has it.  TC's shop is the kind of shop that men have wet dreams over.  Trust me, if you have a man in your life, he would give his right testes to have a shop like TC's.

BUT, guess what he doesn't have...a way to weld aluminum. (all his belly dumps are steel)

Guess what our trailer is made out of?  Yup.. aluminium.

Well Crud.

He says, "No worries- we'll just call our good neighbor "Tin-Horn" who does have an aluminum welder."

Ah but good neighbor is at the car show.  So we have to wait.

In the mean time, lets take it back home and put her in the driveway and I'll start pulling out the mats and getting her cleaned up.  TC is busy hauling gravel for the next door neighbor.

All is going according to "plan". I'm pulling mats and sweeping out shavings and poo.

With much heaving and hoeing, and huffing and puffing, and major groans of, "Oh Crap" I get the old mats out, and start measuring my new ones.

Well crud!  My new mats are not wide enough.

This requires a lot of math, and tape measuring, and calculating. Luckily I have a smart phone. Math is not my strong point.

So then I decide it is time to spray out the trailer. This requires a hill. The hill is in the pasture. Yeah that pasture. It also requires a high pressure sprayer.

I have options.  I can go to the car wash...expensive and I wasn't sure if their hose would be long enough.   I can use TC's high powered super duper pressure washer that lives on its own little trailer.  To use it though I have to fill the 500 gallon tank.  No problem I'll just run it down to the water station at the end of the road.

Oh wait, no I won't, because you can't use that anymore unless you have an account with the city.

Plan B. I'll fill it with the hose from the well.  Okay that works.

Wait a minute. I need to get it from the shop, to the house. TC's Flat bed pickup is hooked to horse trailer. My pick up is hooked to the other horse trailer. White Dodge is hooked to car trailer. New pick up is hidden where I cannot touch it. Service truck is out on a service call. White flat bed is being used by TC's number one shop hand.  The yard truck is out of service for a steering box.

How is it that we can have so many pick ups, and not have one to use when I need one real quick?

We decide to pull the pressure washer with my jeep.

We finally get the pressure washer and the horse trailer back in the pasture on the hill.  The pressure washer won't start. Its out of gas.  We fill it with gas.  Then the battery is dead, we jump it.  Then the floats are stuck on the reservoir and water is pouring all over the ground. (luckily pasture always needs water).  Finally I've got wand in hand and am ready to spray.

TC cranks up the engine and the hose jerks and jumps. I squeeze the trigger and out the side of the handle comes all the black, icky, goopy, slimy "water" that has been in the hose since last summer.  It soaks me in black, smelly goop.  Yum.

"Um, TC? Is this supposed to be spraying out the side?"

Seems that "number one hand"  forgot to drain the system last year, and the water in the wand froze and busted a hole in the side of the wand.  Bugger!

Oh wait, there is another wand (with less knobs and levers) in the tool box.  We hook it up, and start all over.

I finally get down to some spraying. I spray the dirt and poo from the floor up onto the ceiling. I spray myself in the face.  I spray TC in the face.  Neighbor comes over to see what is going on, and to pay for some hay cubes. She gets sprayed as well. TC puts check in his shirt pocket and goes back to hauling gravel. I keep spraying, neighbor runs for her life.

Finally I got it as clean as I was going to get it.   Just in time, because Tin-Horn called to say he was ready to weld.

We haul trailer one street over to his house. He starts welding but the welds won't stick.
"Are you sure this is aluminum?"
"Pretty sure."
He tries again, nothing is sticking.
"Oh wait, I'm using the wrong gas."  (Tin Horn has moments of "duh" too)

We grind everything off and start over. Taa Daa!  We have a latch again!

We go home and it is time to start cutting mats.  I am pretty sure I have my measurements correct.  The mats are 3/4 an inch thick, solid rubber.  I am armed with a little razor knife.

I say that to myself now and think, "How did I not lose a finger?"

Safety with knives...not my strong point. (along with math)

2 hours later I am finished cutting the first mat. I have a system now

It only takes 1 hour for the second one.

The 3rd mat needs a hole cut right in the middle. It has to be exact or it will not fit. The hole is 1" wide and 4" long. (that is 4 girl inches by the way- not guy inches)  You can't even get a good slice, because of the shortness of the cut. All you can do is stab at it.

I stab the mat, I stab my fingers, I stab the concrete.  My ankle (the one I sprained falling down the stairs) is swelling up, because I keep sitting on it while stabbing the mat.  The razor knife is dull.

Simon comes to help. He says, "Mom, your knife is too dull." and leaves.

Thanks for the heads up, son.  (is what I said, what I was thinking was, "No Shit?")

TC comes and demands to know why dinner is not done.

"Um, because I am busy?" (I had no clue what time it was- hell by then I was lucky to know my name)

I stop what I am doing to go fix dinner.

After dinner I go back to cutting. My hands hurt, my knees hurt, my ankle hurts,  my head hurts and I'm still a little miffed over the whole "Where the hell is dinner?" scene.

 Mr and Mrs. Tin Horn show up and  he says, "You seem to be having a little trouble there."

Oh look, it's Captain Obvious!

"Here let me help."

He takes the mat and with fresh  undamaged hands, which are stronger than mine to begin with, finishes the cut I need and helps me get the final mat into the trailer.

Its off by a half inch.  There is a gap between my mats.

I'm done. I cannot cut anymore. I make the executive decision that if the ponies don't like it they can cut their own mats next time.

We call it a day, I go inside and take a shower, then later that evening start a load of laundry.

The couch is now my best friend.

The next morning TC says, "Hey, where is my shirt that was hanging on this chair?"

"Oh I washed it."

He shakes his head in disbelief.

Remember the check he put in his shirt pocket?

Yup...it was now plastered in a gazillion teensy weensy tiny pieces all over the inside of the washer.

I feel like I have just rolled down the mountain back to base camp.










6 comments:

  1. haha, this was a hilarious post - I am a girl and am endlessly jealous of TC's shop, however, as a girl who is more of a fake farmer than anything else, I would for sure break something, and break myself while doing it, if I ever got the chance to own a shop like that. I'm pretty in awe of all the work you got done in one day on this trailer though - you should start some progess pics! Sounds like it's coming along great.

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    1. Go to yesterdays post and there is a picture.

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  2. I too am in awe of the awesome man cave. I am also not good at math and have done my fair share of hitting, bending, breaking and damaging things while swearing about it all going wrong in the only gear it goes wrong in- high gear. I am so glad I am not the only one, not that I thought I ever was, but you know what I mean so it's all good, right? Misery loves company.

    Lucky for TC you were too tired to think straight when he asked about dinner. Afterall, you were armed with a dull knife, hunkered down at a lower level and everything...

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    1. I totally spit my coffee across the desk when I read that!!!!

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  3. LOL! What a day you had! If it helps, I'm laughing with you, not at you :) Can totally sympathize with the math thing. I am so not the one to trust with a tape measure. But I'm absolutely positive the ponies won't mind a little gap, and I expect they're definitely going to appreciate the larger trailer.

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  4. Wow that sounds exhausting! I hate cutting mats! Last ones we cut, we used a circular saw with the blade in backwards, much quicker (but smells of burning rubber). Im sure the ponies will be glad of the new trailer and wont even notice the gap.

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