Friday, March 29, 2024

FROM THE RIDGE: When the wheels come off, panic

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I’ve got a pine forest to go out very shortly.  thirty years ago, when I was busy planting and pruning the trees, harvest seemed like an infinite time span sometime in the distant future. Now, somewhat quicker than expected, the time to bid them farewell is here.
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The prospect of the harvest is not thrilling me because of the preparation required, the mess left behind and the short-term disruption to my farming operation.

For now, it’s the preparation that is consuming my thoughts.

Last week a 20-tonne digger was coming in to put a crossing over a gully for the logging trucks that might be used for only a month and then perhaps again in 30 years time.

I needed to widen my road gateway for the logging trucks anyway so shifted the strainer to add a double gate and dropped a culvert into the water table so the transporter for the digger could get onto the farm easily.

The problem being that the metal truck wasn’t going to be coming until after the digger had finished the crossing so I had to get some red metal over the new pipe.

I was pondering this dilemma while driving into town when, like manna from heaven, one of my neighbours was there on the side of the road with a tandem trailer that looked miraculously like it might be a tip trailer.

It was. And being a good man he was happy to lend it to me for my one load required. I don’t often get this lucky.

Usually I’m loath to borrow things because of a couple of bad experiences in the past but this should be a straightforward transaction.

I carted the trailer with my ute to another excellent neighbour’s red metal pit and walked home and fetched my ancient tractor.

Five bucket loads of material later I was off cautiously back to the road.

There I was met by Mike, an enthusiastic salesman from Vet Services, but I was on a mission and I invited him to follow me down the road to observe the wonder of the battery-powered tip trailer.

Travelling at a cautious 30kmh and within 100 meters of my destination there was a bang and a lurch. 

I immediately thought the trailer had come off the ball despite having checked that I had the right ball size, that the trailer was properly secured and the chain engaged.

I leapt out and Mike hollered that a wheel had come off. Sure enough there was a wheel in the water table and three of the five bolts stripped and lying like dead skittles on the road.

You know how some people are very cool in a crisis and others go to pieces? I’m in the latter category but fortunately Mike is of the former excellent group.

He took me back to my tractor and once back to the trailer I proceeded to shovel madly in the heat, material into the bucket to lighten the load and deposited it over the culvert.

Meanwhile, Daniel from up the road arrived and, like Mike, is excellent in a crisis. 

He got timber from my nearby yards and he and Mike used their jacks to lift the now half empty trailer up and put the wheel back on and borrowed a few bolts from the other three wheels.

They both reckoned I should write about the experience but I said no, folk think I have enough problems in my life already.

I cautiously drove the100 metres and, in a textbook manoeuvre, the trailer deposited the balance of the metal over the new crossing, allowing the transporter easy access the following day.

Next morning, I got the sheep in for shearing and took the trailer into town to make sure I got the right replacement bolts. But no one could supply me with the cap that goes over the axel nut so I’ve spent quite some time walking up and down the grass on the roadside hoping to stand on it and will next hire a metal detector.

I returned the trailer and did my profound apologies although everyone involved agreed I was unlucky as the bolts indicated wear longer than the hour I’d been in charge.

Feeling back in control of my life, I went to clean the woolshed out for the shearers only to notice that my four shearing plants had completely disappeared.

Not stolen but the booked-in maintenance man had finally arrived and obviously decided they needed some tender loving care back at the workshop.

I thought I was going to have to let the ewes out but the shearing contractor sent two shearers with portable plants today and all in my world is back as it should be.

Until tomorrow.

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