Every day has it's challenges, some days can be pretty good one minute and the next everything comes crashing down. Yesterday was one of those days. For my Valentine's Day gift from my husband, he told me I could get the materials for breeding pens. It has been something I have wanted for quite awhile. So I went with him and dropped him off at work on Saturday. I had to go to town and had someone interested in hatching eggs, so I took them with me and they met me to pick them up. That went off without a hitch, but my trip for the materials, not so much.
When you live in a tiny town and have to drive 30 plus miles to pick up specific things for a decent price, you make the most of it. I picked up a few grocery items, then went to the Home Improvement store for wood. Saturday's are usually awful shopping for anything and the weather has been so nice, everyone was out in hordes. I could not get anyone to help me pull and load the wood, except customers who saw me struggling with the plywood...well, not at first anyway. I loaded raidient barrier decking by myself, an older gentleman helped me and so did another lady with the plywood. I pulled everything else except the 2"x4"x8' that there were not enough of on the shelves. It took a long time going through the line, they opened a lane and the man behind me ran to it...they said credit cards only...that guy misunderstood, but had cash but it took time to sort it all out because the register did not have any cash in it for change. After a lot of back and forth and trying to come up with the proper cash, it was my turn. I could not pull my carts through the line so they took the price gun and scanned everything and told me they would load everything for me, because they would have to pull the 2"x4"s from out front.
I paid and went and got my truck and moved it close to the loading area. Another man backed in before I had the chance, so I had to wait my turn. He had a large load and no help to load it. It looked like he was completely redoing a bathroom or two with all the tile, toilet, sinks and cabinetry and wood, either that or building one from scratch. It took awhile, once he moved it had been about half an hour, I checked the time and it was almost 1:30pm...I was suppose to pick my husband up at 2:00. I called him and told him I was waiting for my stuff to be loaded and I would be late picking him up. I pulled in and the guy who had told me they would come load my truck was no where to be found. I pulled and shoved my carts to the loading area and started unloading the smaller wood into my truck. I am kind of a stickler keeping things neat and tidy doing this, trying to fill the bed of the truck so the load would not shift. After I had unloaded about half of it, the man who had checked me out ran by, went and got carts and took them into the store, then came back out to help me. We got everything loaded but the 2"x4"s and he told me to drive and follow him. I backed up to the pile and he started loading them in...I got out and started helping, one reason I like to do the loading is I get to select the wood...and I pick wood that has the fewest knots and no splits...and straight...he did not, so I was loading as fast as I could.
Here is were things start getting bad. I had the tailgate down and left it down because I had 12 foot lengths of wood. I went and got red flags to put on the ends but they had nails to put them on with. I didn't bring a hammer with me. The wood was wet, so I tried pushing them in with my thumbs, it hurt, so I grabbed some paper and folded it several times and shoved those nails at least an inch and a half into the ends of the wood. I got the tie down straps and tried to tie the wood down the best I could, as tight as I could. I thought the load was pretty evenly balanced and the weight was really heavy so it should hold everything down well the way it was stacked, no side to side movement either...I was so wrong. There is a little hill to get out of the parking lot...and bed liners are super slick. I am so glad there was no one behind me when it happened. I heard a noise felt jolt, the truck bounced and then I heard a loud crash...I lost my entire load, one big neatly stacked pile slid right out of my truck onto the driveway in the parking lot. A man drove up, I am not sure if he saw what happened, but he asked me if I could use a hand...just seconds before, I was feeling like crying and wondering how the heck was I going to get all that wood back into my truck by myself?
There are many good people in this world, a man his wife and two daughters also stopped to help. It was chaotic wood going everywhere and to make sure the wood stayed in the truck, we put the tail gate up and just piled everything in, it ended up being a hap hazard mess, but it was reloaded and the second man even when and got additional tie straps out of his truck and he and his wife tied the load down for me. I thanked them all and asked if I could mail the tie down straps back to him and he said it was not necessary, he had a lot of them and always bought more on sale...not to worry about it. I did not inspect the load, they wanted to make sure it wouldn't fall out so I slowly drove out of the parking lot, nothing shifted but once I got on the highway I was worried, the truck shimmied in the wind really badly. It was not evenly loaded and the front of the truck was lighter than the back. I drove slowly back to pick up my husband...I was an hour late.
My husband drove home, the truck continued to shimmy. It was a bit scary, but we made it...next time, I think I will just go ahead and pay for delivery...I was trying to save money. We pulled the truck down into the yard and unloaded it close to the area I had planned to build. We put pallets down first and stacked the wood on top of them. The ugly...well, the wood was so heavy that it bent the top of the tailgate of the truck, something I had avoided originally by leaving the tailgate down...but that is how I lost my load. My husband used a rubber mallet and tried to pop the metal back into place, it worked pretty well...not much I can do about it now anyway. So, I learned another lesson...I am not sure how heavy all that wood really was...but it was wet and a lot of it heavier than usual, and I know I had a heck of a time even moving the carts it was loaded on. I know what not to do now, no more open tailgate with a load of wood...bedliners are slick and any incline can make them slide...even with tie downs if it is heavy enough it won't stop it from sliding right out. I also learned it is best not to put a large amount of wood, especially wet wood...stacked on top of your tailgate. I have no clue how much it actually weighed...but I know it is too much if I can't move the cart made for that purpose.
Oh well, I will be busy next week...building. I hope I can get the breeding pens completed pretty quickly. Once I can separate breeds I should be able to sell full breed chicks. It would be nice to be able to actually make enough money to feed them every week too, now if I can just get rid of 30 or 40 roosters or more, things will start looking up. I must get busy, I have brooders to clean and a baby goose pipping, incubators to check and laundry to do. I am sure glad my husband cooks on the weekends, at least I know we will eat good...I don't eat too much during the week sometimes, just get so busy I don't think about it much and time passes by quickly when you are busy.
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