So it was quite the interesting day! As with many days in the last weeks or however long it’s been, I’ve not been sleeping well, And it was no different last night.
I didn’t get much sleep at all. The funny thing, is that I haven’t been really tired during the day.
Odd. And when it’s time for me to go to bed at night, I’m not really very tired. Yes I’m tired, but I’m not like exhausted like I should be for the massive lack of sleep that I’ve been getting.
My brain hasn’t been working very well, but that seems to be the only side effect that I’ve been noticing.
🤷
Anyway, I spent most of the morning online on Facebook marketplace looking for a trailer to buy so that I could haul the car my customer sold me home.
I didn’t want to get just a regular car hauler because I also have several pieces of heavy equipment, and I wanted something that could handle not just cars but equipment and trucks and whatnot, so I looked around and looked around. I didn’t want to pay what they cost new, as they are rather expensive, so I was picky but also in a bit of a hurry.
I always tell my customers that, if it all possible, don’t ever be in a hurry.
Oops. 🙃
In between looking for trailers online and whatnot, I spent a little time cleaning up the garage, and I grabbed my electric chainsaw and went out to the huge limb that overhangs the yard on one of the big trees right on the edge of the woods. My mom and I decided it would probably be best to take that limb off, so I did the very scary work of going up in a ladder and trying to take down an absolutely massive limb at an odd angle where I couldn’t get to the limb almost at all.
Rather sketchy. 😅
The limb was so huge that I couldn’t just cut it and let it fall. It would have barber chaired, meaning that it would have split the bark and torn a huge chunk of bark perhaps the entire way down the tree as it came off. That’s… No bueno for a tree.
So I notched it on the bottom as best I could, and then I started cutting it from the top, and I was successful at making it so that it didn’t barber chair, but the limb was so heavy that it pulled out wood deeper than my cut going back toward into the tree.
Not what I was hoping for.
When the limb finally began to come down, the weight of all the branches on the ground held the limb in place, which was good because had it popped off, it may well have kicked back and knocked me off the ladder.
When I saw that it got hung up, I climbed down the ladder is quickly as I could and got out of the woods as quickly as I could. Then I proceeded to cut off Lynn’s from what was laying on the ground until the weight of the tree was forced to shift. When it shifted, the limb came crashing down to the ground, barely nicking the ladder but not knocking it over.
Down!
I spent some time cutting up the branches that were on the ground and dragging them into different parts of the yard for the deer, as the deer like to eat the leaves off the trees.
After that, I headed back into the house and began again to look for trailers that I could buy. Gratefully, I found some good candidates, And after doing some narrowing down and weeding out and haggling a bit, I found one in Missouri That seemed promising–a 2020 12,000 lb GVWR trailer that the gentleman had barely used it all and was still in great shape. I got it for 3500, and a comparable trailer new from the local trailer place was like $8,000 I think, not to mention I’d have to pay tax on it because it would have been over $4,000.
But since I got it for $3,500, it was both cheap and no taxes. 🥳😁
So I drove up the hill to where my pickup truck is, and I loaded a bunch of my tools in the pickup truck to be safe just in case I needed them, and I headed north back into Missouri for another potential purchase.
The drive was leisurely, and I took the 2 hours that I spent on the road and used it to dictate my journal entries that I posted yesterday.
The trailer was indeed in Good shape, and I had a great little conversation with the owner before driving away.
And then… I screwed up.
😬
He was out in the country, and he had kind of a windy tight route from the back of his shop around some trees, and as I was rounding the corner, I smashed my brand new trailer against one of his trees, tearing off a very large section of the trees bark at the base of the trunk. 😬😬😬
And bending the fender on my brand new, great condition trailer. 😭
Honestly, I was more worried about his tree than I was about my trailer. He helped me bend the fender back into position so it wouldn’t rub on the tire, and he said he didn’t care at all about the tree, which was great, But I still felt terrible. 😕
I finished dictating the two journal entries on the way back, and then I stopped off at The property to get everything ready to head down to Fayetteville to pick up the Volkswagen beetle that I had purchased the day before.
Gratefully, the drive down was uneventful, the trailer working just fine, and I was able to load the car onto the trailer without any issues. 🥳
I want to get a winch for cars that can’t drive up onto the trailer under their own power, But that will come another day.
I dragged my new toys home, did a little show and tell with my mom, and then drove up to the upper pasture to transfer everything from my truck back to my work fan in preparation for the work day on Monday.
Two new toys, one to keep, the other to… flip? Keep?
I guess we’ll see. 😊
Once I got home, I ate some food, veged out a bit, and crashed.
Quite the day.
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 