Thursday, June 27, 2013

Stuck Truck

Two days ago, I had a call from SLA Transport, the place where I bought a tractor-trailer trailer.  They would deliver it between 7:30 and 8 AM the next day.  When I awoke yesterday morning, it was raining.  I told them to not deliver the trailer if it was raining because of mud.  I went to the land at 7:15 anyway and was using Bessie to grade the road when the trailer arrived.  Ugh.

A nice young fella was driving.  I showed him where I wanted it.

"Do you think you can get it in there?"

"I'll try", he grinned.

Well, he got it down the road with no problem, but as soon as he hit the mud on the cleared land, he stopped.  He didn't bog down and sink, mind you.  He just didn't have any traction.  It was like he was on ice.  The clay mud was slicker than snot on a glass doorknob.  I tried pulling him with Bessie but that got us about two feet.  This was a job for Earl and the backhoe.

So I drove Bessie over to Earl's house and fetched him.   He came over, looked at the truck, looked at me, and took a puff on his pipe.  I know what he was thinking.  "I don't need this shit."  We spent about two hours of pulling every which way.




Try pulling up!  Nope.

How about pulling with the backhoe blade?  Finally, that did it.  We moved him a couple of feet...

and then Earl towed him with the backhoe, and he was gone.


So now we're left with this huge trailer in the middle of our property, right where the barn is supposed to go. The kid said he'd come back in dry weather to move it, but...

1) When will we have dry weather?  Rain is forecast everyday for the next week.

2) Where I want it to go, I don't think he can move it.  I've got to think on this.  I'm thinking pulleys and a big honkin' winch.  I need to turn it 180 degrees and move it to where I was standing when I took the above photo.  Any ideas?  Besides a Huey helicopter?

Anyway, I was drenched and soaking wet by quitting time, which was about noon.  I went home and hung my work clothes out to dry.


This morning?  We have brilliant sunshine with nary a cloud in the sky.  It would have been a perfect day to deliver the trailer.  Oh well, no biggie.  I've dealt with problems before and have always sorted it out somehow.  After losing both engines on our trawler in rough seas off Sandy Hook, this kind of thing seems pretty minor.  A challenge, actually.

I'm sure Earl can figure it out.


5 comments:

  1. If Egyptian slaves could build pyramids with levers, pullies and ramps, then Dave can move a piddly little trailer around his clearing.

    Tom carter

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well... along the lines of a barn-raising party, seems to me a Bleecker Mountain Tractor-Trailer-Moving-Party should attract all area tractors, ATVs and dirt bikes lured by the specter of free Victory Beers...

    ReplyDelete
  3. If victory beers are involved, well: that's a game-changer. Who needs slaves? Bessie and a bunch of drunks could move ANYTHING!

    TC

    ReplyDelete
  4. I remember when the hardest work Dave ever did was take pics of the "friggin pelicans"! And THAT was worth a victory beer!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey! Photographing friggin' pelicans IS work. Well, not like hard manual labor, but I had to stand around a fairly long time with a camera around my neck. I love Bleecker Mountain, but I am missing Georgia too.

      Delete