We came up with a unique way to build our horse barn, we thought. We needed a weather-proof building for hay, tack and feed storage, and also an area to store our household goods as we made the transition from our city home to the country.
We would purchase and move in a 32-foot storage trailer, minus the wheels and underframe, and that would be the north wall of our barn. In other words, we would build and attach the barn to this trailer.
We purchased the trailer in Dallas and made arrangements with the yard owner to deliver it.
He talked to my husband to determine if he had to go by any D.O.T. check-points between there and our farm. Hmmmmmm, was this an omen??
About two hours later than the agreed delivery time, after dark, we get a call he is crawling along our farm-to-market road, not sure where to turn. So hubby takes his 1993 Dodge three-quarter ton truck to lead him the rest of the way to the farm.
I wait and watch as I see Hubby's Dodge turn down our gravel road followed by an old diesel 18-wheeler that probably should have been ground for scrap ten years ago.
I open the gait as the guy pulls the trailer into our acreage with a trail of diesel smoke and sounding like a 747 trying to taxi down the runway with a bad engine.
That was just the start of Murphy's visit to our farm that night.
We had a nice spot all staked out where we wanted the trailer, even well-covered with lime to discourage termite invasion of the wood floor that would sit on the bare earth. He carefully lined his trailer to drop the storage unit. It wouldn't budge off his flatbed.
In desperation the two men came up with a new game plan. They attached a big chain to Hubby's Dodge. I watched in horror as the three-quarter ton pick up and the 18-wheeler performed a tug of war over the storage trailer. Hubby's truck was jerked, pulled and yanked backwards like a tin can tied behind a car marked "just married" and leaving the church. The Dodge was smoking as bad as the big truck. The sky was so full of black dirt from Hubby's spinning wheels, we were all coughing.
"I'm calling the neighbors," I yelled. They owned a number of large tractors.
"No, not yet," Hubby said.
Men!!!!!
So I agonized some more until they finally stopped to re-assess the situation.
"The king pin lock is stuck on the flatbed," Hubby said to the driver.
Then Hubby didn't think calling the neighbors was such a bad idea.
It was 10 p.m. We made the call. The wife answered. She said her husband was asleep and she wasn't going to wake him. We pleaded. It was an emergency. She wouldn't budge. No help was coming.
The tug of war resumed. How the Dodge stayed in one piece, I'll never know. Finally, with my nerves shot and both men exhausted, the trailer gave and hit the ground with a mighty thud after midnight.
I could only hope the mighty thud shook those neighbors right out of their bed.
The stakes we had so meticiously measured and positioned were ground to dust and the trailer hit the ground where it chose. But it was on the ground--all that mattered at this point--after close to five hours of effort.
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