HOMESTEAD BACKLOG UPDATE(6) THE TRAILER

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(Edited)

THE IMPOSSIBLE...

February 12th 2021

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At the end of December 2020, Mr Espino, our neighbor to the east, gave us a 32 ft long work trailer. It was of no use to him, but I knew it would be a great trailer for us to store all kinds of stuff in.

The only thing is, it needed to be moved.. and that was not going to be an easy task! It would involve somehow getting the trailer across our Creek and into the woods to its final resting place near the cabin.

The trail I needed to take it down had a habit of being VERY muddy as well, adding to the complexity of the situation...so it had to be moved when it was dry(not likely to ever happen) OR completely frozen. We went with the latter.😁

SO IT BEGINS

It was a bitterly cold day and temperatures hadn't reach above 10 degrees fahrenheit in weeks....the ground was frozen solid. So I installed the chains I had fabricated for the tires and hooked into the trailer.

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The next step was to get the trailer down into the creek... And then the tough part getting it back up out of the creek.

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Gravity was a big help coming down into the creek, as it pretty much pushed me into it. Once in the creek things got a little more difficult. The water in the creek was completely frozen and I thought that it would hold the truck and trailer...that was not the case.

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In the above picture, the hole doesn't look that bad but, it really was. 😁

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*Here I am, pretending to have fallen in the hole.😂🤣

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*It was big enough to climb down into...so I did.

MOVING ON

Getting the trailer out of the creek and up and out of the other side would be the real task.

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*Here I am as I start the approach.

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Half way up... And I was thinking well this is going really well.. things were about to change.

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If you look closely in the picture above can see the problem that I encountered. The incline was too steep and the run too short... And the trailer bottomed out on the frame before and after the axle.😂😂

So, to remedy this situation, I carried a bunch of rocks and built ramps for the tires.

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This worked out wonderfully, and got the trailer high enough that the frame did not drag... However, by this point it was too slippery for the farm truck be able to pull the trailer up by itself...and there were a couple trees in my way. Silver maples, that I DID NOT want to cut down...

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I had thought that i might have this issue, so I had moved the Ranger to a position where it could've hooked to the farm truck to help pull it. So I called my best friend, Duane, to be my second driver.

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While it may be hard to see in the picture above, we hooked a strap up to the trucks and a couple of tugs later the trailer was out of the creek.

....Sorry I didnt take pictures of our victory...it was so cold that day that after doing it, all I could think about was a warm meal and warm dry feet.😁😁




Come back next time as our backlogged updates bring us to setting up the ramjet pump and getting the spring pumping to the cabin.

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