What did you do today?

[Taffy]

Yesterday I let the goats into the back yard to eat the billions of falling leaves.  Bourbon decided he'd rather be a bird and eat the sunflower seeds from a bird feeder!
   
This afternoon I saddled up Bourbon and loaded up my tripod chair, a light jacket and one of my hiking poles.  I was going to lead him on the road so only used one pole and had his lead rope in the other hand.  While we were walking along the road a big yellow school bus came along.  He thought it might eat him and clung to me for protection.   Once off the road a part of our walk was along a train sidetrack that runs along the edge of one of our fields.  The train only runs on it once a day at 10AM.  It was a gorgeous fall day.  Sunny calm t-shirt weather.  We only walked a little over a mile.  I'm having a total knee replacement in January.  I can hardly wait to get out and really hike again!
   

[Nanno]

So yesterday was election day and we celebrated the evening by watching a Three Stooges marathon. We felt it was appropriate for the occasion regardless of the outcome.

[Taffy]

I wish I'd thought of that!

[Charlie Horse]

Yesterday I finally finished making my old Circle J horse trailer functional again. Its aluminum skinned on steel frame, and I bought it from my neighbor for 1,000 bucks about 5 years ago. I havent used it since because it fell apart. What happened is the neighbor needed to borrow it. I said OK, but I wasn't sure about its condition (it had sat for a couple years) and I felt like the tires sucked. Well, the trip was a disaster for them and my trailer. First the horses fought for 4 hours against going in to it. This resulted in one of the back doors being more or less broken off. When it got back, the ramp was holding on by one hinge (Circle J deceded to wrap a piece of plywood with sheet steel. Water could get in but not out and of course it rusted away). They had had a flat and driven for 5 miles with it flapping around shredding the fiberglass fender. Then apparently it got dropped off the jack and dented the front left brake drum. Due to the fact that a 6 pin round plug has no standardization, I once dragged it for 2 miles before figuring out that headlights lock up the brakes when hooked to the Suburban. The brakes got hot enough to cause the axle grease to separate. All the wiring was questionable and wired wrong for a more modern 7 flat-pin round plug and all the marker lights were toast. Some of the structural beams had filled with water and exploded due to some fundamentally silly design choices by Circle J. Soooooo

Its been a couple months of afternoons spent but I've redone the important stuff. Next year I'll work on repainting the roof and replacing some rusty non-critical stuff in the front. As it sits now its a fully functional trailer thats better than factory.



You can see the fenders have been repaired and repainted. The bearings replaced and greased, new high quality tires, new drum on the bad one, and the brake wires replaced.



All of this is new. The main ramp is square tubing with angle iron welded to hold the plywood. Sheetmetal is welded to the frame and bolts are welded to the sheet metal. Its all epoxy primed and urethane painted with expensive automotive seam sealer covering all welds and gaps. The counter-sunk bolts are even sealed in and the wood is heavily painted. A new stall mat is screwed on and sealed around the edges. The hinges are heavy-duty weld-on bullet type, allowing the ramp to be removed if you take off the springs and slide it to the side. The butt-doors are similar, and the top door has a removable wood panel for waterproofing and winter/summer reasons. One spring loaded latch opens both. Note how each door has an overlapping piece of angle iron that retains the lower doors for safety and waterproofing.



You can see part of the middle post in this shot. The old one was bad so I put in a new one with the change that the new one can be removed with 3 bolts. If a horse goes down in there or in an accident or if I want to haul something that is wider than a horse, I can quickly pull the center post now. Also notice the expanded steel to keep goats from jumping out if the wood panel is removed. Also I've added neoprene foam thats meant for garage door gaskets to the top lip to make a rain drip that is soft and wont hurt a horse that hits it with his head. I'm adding more of that soon.



In truth I hate side-by-side horse trailers. Horses hate to load in these even if its shiny new paint and upholstery. I did all this work because its what I had. I've probably got another 1500 into it on top of the 1000 to buy it now, but at least its a functional asset and with new tires it'll last many more years.



The neighbor put a crazed pit bull in the trailer once (she was a dog catcher for a while) and it ate all the upholstery including the wood, and even ate the edges of the floor mats. That took me 100 bucks and 3 afternoons to replace. That divider is on the list of things to freshen up when I work on the front half next year. There is rust on the manger floor, one of the posts has filled with water and exploded, and the roof needs repainting (the bolts holding it down had broken the fiberglass around them and let water in stuff-- Now fixed). I also need to repaint the hitch and add some access steps to the front of the fenders.

As a side note, Harbor Freight marker lights have a 30% chance of not surviving the rigors of installation. I'm replacing them-- They're total crap.

With this done my move down to the redrock area of central Utah is about to happen. Big adventure ahead!

[IdahoNancy]

You are talented, patient, and creative. It is cool that you revived something from near destruction and made it good again. We all need to do more of that.

[Nanno]

That's a pretty crazy project, Charlie Horse! I'm glad you were finally able to salvage that trailer. Good luck with your move!

[sydneyjd]

Wow, it has been a really long time! And this site is still chicken kicking. (:-p)
The trailer looks great Charlie Horse!
Heh, i just remeber this site after a whole year today, interesting. Nice to see you all again! :-)

[Nanno]

Woah! Long time no see! Nice of you to drop by. What have you been up to lately?

[sydneyjd]

Not a great deal out of the ordinary.Even though my ordinary is extraordinary to some people. Lol. I still have my milk goats, and they have been doing quite well.
We are starting to hunker down for winter. Brr. :-)

[Nanno]

I'm glad your milk goats are doing well! We're hunkering down for winter too. It's about time. It's finally snowing today! We've actually had shorts wether for most of November. It's been so dry it's almost scary. It's nice to finally have a fire going in the wood stove and see the white flakes coming down.