Last week I got it in my head that I needed a farm trailer, for doing log inoculations and for keeping a fridge for mushrooms, as well as for storing other odds-and-ends. In the past I’ve done inoculations in Minneapolis before moving all the logs again out to the farm. This year I decided to cut out that step. Enclosed trailers such as I wanted looked expensive and not very adaptable, so I decided on something different…
This is the farm trailer in all its glory, situated next to my fruiting tents, where I’ll be temporarily storing new logs before and perhaps after inoculation. Fortunately I chose to set up the trailer before the snows late last week. Believe me, it was difficult enough without snow!
I hoped to get this chore completed within one day, but it actually took two and a half days. The first day dead-ended fairly early, as my hydraulic jacks were way too unstable and short to do the job. On the second day I brought new floor jacks, and my friend Jon. I told him it could take the whole day, but I don’t think either of us predicted that it would be 1:30 the next morning before we both landed back at our Minneapolis homes. Below is a night shot of the trailer bed just as we slipped it under the shed, which was being propped up by jacks and concrete blocks. That was a pretty heady moment, but we still had more than six hours left of effort. We placed more and more weight on the trailer bed while backing it up further under the shed. Helpful were the tank-like rolly things that the front of the shed rested; they eliminated any friction there as we shifted things. When most of the weight was on the trailer, we used a come-along (winch) to pull the shed the rest of the way onto the trailer bed. Then we strapped and bolted the two together, weighted down the shed interior with concrete blocks, and avoided the freeway and freeway speeds. We made it to the farm with flying colors!
The next day I returned to the farm to move it into position. This was a tricky operation, since I needed to maneuver it fairly far off the road but between trees and my fruiting tents. I moved a large brush pile that was in the middle of all this, then promptly got myself stuck in the fill at the bottom of all such piles. In the end, AAA pulled me out, and got the trailer into position in the process.
I’ll try to post about my next steps on the trailer, which will probably include adding a window and setting up lights and the inoculation table.
Comments